Devon Kershaw

0:28Devin Kershaw, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for coming out here. Yeah, well, we're at the Cam War Nordic Center. I guess you train here for most of the year? Oh, yeah, for sure. I've been based here for eight years now. So it's definitely home. So where are you from? Up north, right? Yeah, I'm from Sub-Dunteria originally. Oh, OK. Yeah. So in Niccol City. They have the Niccol City, Niccol Capital. So what made you move it here? To train? Yeah, to train for cross-country skiing, and also, the national team is based here. So there's a bit of a residency rule. Even if I wanted to train in Sub-Dunteria over the summer to be a member of the national team, they want everyone together so we can push each other and train with each other as we try and get better. Well, I heard there was a little bit of a scandal speaking to that with Alex Harvey like a year or two ago. He didn't want to move out here or something like that? You know, surprisingly, I didn't hear a whole lot about that because Chondron and I were in Hawaii road cycling.

1:15Road cycling, right? That's tough way to spend our spring. No, so actually, I missed all that. But yeah, I guess I heard coming back, people were saying that it was a pretty big deal, but he's in Quebec still. And still working and made the team. I thought you were the leader. I heard you're the headline person this year. Well, I don't know about that. We have a lot of really, really talented skiers. Alex is the most talented kid I've ever trained with in my life. And then Ivan is a ridiculous story. He's so hardworking in Georgia as well as tough and hardworking. So we have a great men's team. It's going to be exciting. Now, we are here to talk about you, but you mentioned Ivan. And I was just reading about a story yesterday. And I don't think many Canadians, not to demean your sport or what he means, but people need to be more aware of it. So he skied for Russia in 2006, and now he's skiing for us.

2:02Yeah, no, it's great. He had came over, well, I had met him in 2004. And he was skiing some of the NORAM circuit races that were going on around Canada and the United States. And trying to make a go of it and trying to be Canadian citizen. And he was a bit difficult for him at times because some people were making promises for citizenship that maybe it's hard because in Canada, there's very stringent regulations to become a citizen. And he didn't really understand. I was taking so long, and this and that. And the opportunity came up for him. He was finally told in 2006, there's no way you're going to be a Canadian citizen for the Olympics in Torino. So we took a gamble. He flew over to Russia, raced the next day, and then made their Olympic team.

2:49And now we get to benefit from that. Exactly. That's fantastic. So what are your, I know there's the classic, and there's the skate as well, which are two completely different types of cross country skiing. What are you into this year? Well, my favorite would be classical style. My coach is smacking for saying that because I enjoy skating as well, too, but I'm more confident in the classic style. So the 4x10K relay, which is, it's the big event for cross country skiing. It's hard to describe, but the rich history with that event, especially with the superpowers winning in the past. When a lot of people think across country skiing, they think of Lilla Hammer, 94 over 100,000 Norwegian fans, outlined the course, camping out, cheering on their team in the relay. That's the way it's going to be for you guys this year.

3:35Yeah, I know I'm excited. So that's a big focus for our team. And then, of course, all the other events, we have a fighting chance, so we'll just have to see how it goes. We're going to bring home some more medals this time. Well, see, we've never brought home a medal in the past. The Canadian men. Well, your girlfriend has, though. Yes, the women have. The women have brought home three. So we have some work cut out for us. But we have got a really good young team. And we're building more and more experience. And the way I describe it to people that are curious about cross country skiing and the chances and things like that, if any men were to medal, nobody in the cross country ski world would be surprised. They wouldn't be like, well, where'd that come from? But at the same time, if we didn't medal at all, no one would be like, they bombed, big headlines. What happened to Canadian cross country skiing?

4:20We're not quite there. And although we are in great shape, and we're just going to have to see how it goes. I think you're going to do just fine. Tell people the difference between classical and skate, because I was doing a little research because I knew you'd be talking today. But I don't think most people know about it. Yeah, for sure. Well, classical style is when people think cross country skiing, they think, you know, wool socks pulled up to here. Maybe like some mixed nuts and snotty nose minus 20 and go out into the back 40 and maybe have binoculars and look at birds or something. I don't know. And usually when people think of that kind of skiing, it's very linear. So the classical style is in that linear, you know, very, there's a track room, sometimes there's not, and you ski in a linear motion forward. And skating, which came about in the late 70s, early 80s,

5:07which is funny, it took that long. Because if you think about skating on ice, or speed skating hockey, it's very, you know, It's a V kind of A. Exactly. So you push off to the side and extend your legs out. And it's a faster technique because you can really put a lot of energy into it and you're using your legs a lot more on every single stride. Whereas classic, some of it's just double pulling. So your legs aren't moving all that much on the flatter terrain, but in skating, your legs are always moving. So it's a very demanding style. Yeah, it seems like more of a workout than the clock. Maybe that's why you prefer the classic. It's a little easier. No, classic. How it works to in the off season training, I mean, the people that are good skaters tend to be good cyclists because it's very quad based. And the people that are good classic skiers tend to have more of a running background, again, because it's a linear motion.

5:54And I grew up doing a lot of running and suffering and stuff. So I think that's probably why. Fair enough. I know these races are really long. Are you have something in your headphones? Are you listening to music or are you just using the nature? No, it's just, you know, you're pushing so hard that all the focus has to be for myself, especially a 50k will take two hours. It's a marathon for running. It is equivalent in the Winter Olympics to the Summer Marathon and running. And for two hours, you know, you have to be, it's long for sure. But your mind just doesn't drift because you are putting so much energy into that forward motion and that forward momentum that everything is going into. Like, for me, all I think about is like technique. Where can I gain extra centimeters in every stride? Am I skiing more relaxed than the person in front of me? If I'm leading how relaxed am I skiing because it's 50k?

6:40It's an efficiency thing. And you have to hit that pace. You know, it's funny, the races are long but they go by like so fast. And you cross the finish line, you're exhausted. And it's again just breaking down those races into very manageable chunks. So I just use keywords like that for sure. There's no, no, you don't think about like, man, I need to pick up something. How is it going to get there? I was thinking maybe the music would push you if you go on beat or something. No, no. And you're always getting information from the staff out on course, splits, how you're doing in the race, how other people are doing. Are you ahead? Are you behind? Things like that. So you really have to stay focused on what you're doing. So what are you doing until the games? I know there's a World Cup here in like two weeks and probably training for that. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm going to train through the World Cups here. It's a great opportunity to race at home and to stay at home.

7:27And that's really where the home Olympics that the, for us as Canadian skiers, that's where our advantage really lies because a lot of us are based in the Bo Valley here. We have the races before the Olympics in the Bo Valley, which the Alberta World Cup Society has done such a great job hosting it. It's a big job to hold the World Cup. And that's a great opportunity. But for now, like I said, I've just returned from a long two and a half months stint on the World Cup circuit, which is European based. And so now, you know, catching my breath a little bit and training on the trails that it's a great opportunity because most of the winters, I'm away in Europe. So what a great opportunity. So have you even had a chance to go on the Vancouver trails that you're going to be doing? Well, I have in the past for sure. We've had spring camps there and I've raced, our national championships were there two years

8:14ago. So I'm familiar for sure with the courses, but Vanock has very, for the cross country side of things. They have to wire everything and it's quite difficult. So it's been closed off completely since then. So there's no advantage to being Canadian kind of? No, not right. Not in the cross country venue. Not absolutely not. But we have spent time there. So that's important. Because it's close. Well, I'm going to switch topics just for a second. I know you want to become a doctor, wouldn't it? It's a completely different change. Yeah, well, that's always been, you know, it's not a really big, it's a totally different side of things. But, you know, sports medicine, I've dealt with some really great sports medicine doctors through our team and that are based in Calgary at the high performance, like a human performance lab and things like that.

8:59So that's something that I think I could, I'd like to take what I know from athletics and then obviously learn a ton of stuff about the human body and then see if I can help the next generation of skiers, runners, whatever. So that's what I'd like to do. Well, good luck with that. Yeah, good luck. Yeah, I'm sure it will be. Good luck with that. Good luck at the games. Thank you very much for doing this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.