The Finns seemed happy too.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

A world championship in either Lahti, Falun or Holmenkollen is a big deal. Especially for the home team.
Winning on home soil is better and bigger than winning a olympic medal in a country that does not care about xc-skiing.
Also it was important for Finland to get back after the wc 2001 (big doping scandal).

More than 160,000 tickets had been sold before the championship. So it is a party

I'd also debate for a Canadian Nordic Skier, when our guys win medals at a world's at any Nordic country venue, we skiers see it on par with an Olympic medal even though our media does not care. It's the same way as a triathlete, many of us (not all but many) care more about Peter Reid or Lori Bowden's Kona wins than Simon's gold in Sydney.

Yes people that know the sports know what a good performance is.
It is harder to be top 10 in a world cup race than a championship.

I just wished that media, companies and actually the national federations in North America could treat endurance sports as a normal sport, and nothing that is important 2 weeks every 4th year.

I had Harvey on my fantasy team for the 50k so I am happy :-)

Well, on the part in bold, not just treat olympic sports as "normal sports" but sports like soccer and tennis (in addition to cycling, skiing, athletics and swimming) like normal sports. At least in these sports teh humans doing them are more or less normal proportioned people, in that the sporting heros aren't largely different from a general population person, just fitter and more coordinated. Meanwhile, the top North American sports, (football-basketball-baseball-hockey) the pros are all steroid pumped freaks (or you have to be one to get there). Which takes us down the path of an entirely different topic that I'd rather not derail your thread with....so let's just go back to discussing "Olympic sports".

Here you have an interview from Norwegian TV (NRK).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwHH3ZQoIoo

30 years after his dad's 50k World Cup win... Apple meet Tree

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http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Now I hope Team Canada will get some better funding.


First MASSIVE congratulations to Alex Harvey - this is a historical first for Nordic Skiing in Canada. Few in Canada will understand the significance of this. It was nice to hear it as the lead sports story yesterday and today on the CBC.

Elite world class level Nordic Skiing these days is a bit like bike racing - you need HUGE levels of fitness, there is an extraordinary amount of technical details (waxing, ski choice etc . .), and you have to have a bit to a lot of luck go your way!

On the funding - this will be VERY helpful for Harvey individually but also for the whole of the men's team - particularly with the Winter Olympic Games a year away. The Own The Podium program, specifically ear-marks extraordinary funding for athletes and teams that have legit shots of podium places in Olympic Games & World Championships. I don't how much more this will mean for the men's Nordic Ski Team, as they have been both as a team and also with some individual results/ranked, in the top 8 -10 in the world a few times over the last number of years (where Own The Podium funding kicks in).

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

A little off topic, but what is it about XC skiing that makes it possible for an athlete like Harvey win a 2 hour race as well as a 5 minute sprint? How different would their training be from say triathlon training, such that they can excel at such different length races?

The sprint is not really a sprint.
It is 4 races over a short time. Think about 4xmile with some rest between.
You need endurance as well as high speed.

That is why Krogh, Harvey, Ustigov, Northug, Bjoergen, Weng, Nilsson, Jacobsen all can be good at distance as well as sprint.

Add Diggins to your list...

Silver in the sprint, 5th in the 30K, behind Norwegian team time trial. The best part is she's only 25...

Same age as Heidi Weng (2nd) and Ragnhild Haga (4th). There are a lot of good young skiers. Just look at Sweden, they had a 19y on their relay team (got a medal)

Bradley Wiggins is a 4000m pursuit champion (~4 min), World Hour Record guy and TdF Champion....so basically the same energy systems that Alex Harvey is using.