Hometown:

Saint Ferréol les Neiges

Born:
September 7, 1988

Club:

Club Mont Sainte Anne

http://alexharvey.ca

Alex Harvey – biography

Alex’s father is Pierre Harvey, who introduced his son to skiing at the age of three. Pierre Harvey was the first Canadian cross country skier to win a World Cup event and the national training centre in Québec City is named in his honour. In 2007, Alex won two bronze medals in the Junior World Championships (20 kilometre pursuit, and the 10 kilometre free technique). The following year, he won silver at the Junior Worlds, in the 10 kilometre classic event. Three years later, Alex became the first Canadian to win gold at the Under-23 World Championships, when he won the pursuit.

Alex is Canada’s most successful Canadian cross country skier in history, outside of the Olympic Games. He is a five-time medallist at FIS Nordic World Ski Championships and has won 26 individual World Cup medals. At the 2011 World Championships in Oslo, Alex and team-mate Devon Kershaw made history when they won gold in the team sprint, becoming the first Canadian men to ever reach the World Championship podium in cross country skiing.

Alex followed up this achievement by winning a bronze medal in the classic sprint at the 2013 Nordic World Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy, thus becoming the first Canadian man to win an individual cross country medal at the world championships. Two years later, in 2015 at Falun, Sweden Alex was a double medallist at worlds, winning silver in the classic sprint, and bronze in the 30 kilometre skiathlon. In the 2017 World Championships at Lahti, Finland he won gold in the 50 kilometre mass start free technique event.   Alex was the first North American to accomplish this since the event begn in 1925.

Alex’s first World Cup win was in March 2012 in Falun, Sweden, on the same course that his father, Pierre, had earned the first of his World Cup wins 25 years earlier. To date in his career, Alex has won a total of 7 gold, 14 silver and 8 bronze medals in individual World Cup competition.

In World Cup team competition, Alex has won 1 gold and 2 bronze medals.  He won gold with Len Valjas in the 6 x 1.3 kilometre Team Sprint in January 2017 in Toblach, Italy. In January 2009 in Whistler, British Columbia Alex and George Grey came third (bronze medal) in the Team Sprint, and in January 2017 in Ulricehamn, Sweden Alex and team-mates Devon Kershaw, Knute Johnsgaard and Len Valjas won bronze in the 4 x 7.5 kilometre Men’s Relay.

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In the 2013/2014 and in the 2016/2017 seasons, Alex finished third overall in World Cup points.  Also in 2016/2017 he was 2nd in Distance World Cup points at the end of the season. In 2018 he was third overall in the Tour de Ski.

Alex is a three time Olympian:  Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018.   Although he has not won an Olympic medal, he has twice finished in fourth place:   in 2010 he was part of the Canadian Men’s Team which had its best-ever Olympic results, which included a 4^th place finish in the team sprint with Devon Kershaw.   In 2018 in PyeongChang, Alex was fourth in the 50 kilometre mass start classic race.

Alex retired at the end of the 2018/2019 ski season.   His last World Cup races were held in Quebec City, where he won silver in the 2 x 15 kilometre pursuit, and had the fastest time in the freestyle leg.   He also won silver in the 15 kilometre mass-start classic race, to the delight of the home-town crowd.

Source: Canada Olympic Committee, Wikipedia, FIS