CROSS-COUNTRY:

One day to go: Kershaw 3rd in tour stage, now 4th overall, with Harvey 7th

Jan. 8, 2011

VAL DI FIEMME, Italy — Devon Kershaw of Canada racked up his fourth podium finish of this season's Tour de Ski with a third-place effort Saturday in the thrilling cross-country showcase that wraps up Sunday.

Dario Cologna of Switzerland finished second behind Petter Northug of Norway in Saturday's stage, maintaining the overall lead. Canada's Alex Harvey was fifth on the day.

Northug won the men's classic 20-kilometre mass-start race — stage seven of the cross-country series — for his first World Cup victory of the season. He clocked in at 57 minutes 17.2 seconds, 1.8 seconds ahead of Cologna and and 2.2 seconds up on Canada's Kershaw.

Sunday, the tour concludes with a nine-kilometer freestyle race in Val die Fiemme, with Cologna seeking to repeat his 2009 accomplishment. Cologna has a 1.18-second lead over Northug. Martin Jaks has moved into third, 2.46 back, with Kershaw about five seconds further back in fourth. The fight for a podium position tomorrow will be tight as Harvey is now seventh overall, only five seconds off Kershaw, and the next three skiers are still quite close.

"There is not much else I can do now," Kershaw said. "Four podiums is unbelievable. I'm still fired up. I raced my best again and I finished on the podium. I have always dreamed of being on the World Cup podium and winning a World Cup race so to be a part of it is amazing."

The 28-year-old Kershaw raced to his first career victory earlier this week and won back-to-back silver medals last weekend.

"People are surprised. I'm surprised too but we really shouldn't be," Kershaw said on the recent success of the Canadian team. "We are not a bunch of bums skiing in Canada. We have a great group of skiers in our country and our men's team has taken our turns at the podium over the last few years. We have worked really hard and we shouldn't be surprised.

Kershaw's journey to the podium began with a silver in the 15-kilometre classic race in Oberhof, Germany last Saturday. He followed that up the next day with a second-place finish in the classic-sprint in Oberstdorf. The two-time Olympian won gold Wednesday in a skate-sprint in Toblach, Italy.

"There are so many reasons for why this has come together," Kershaw said. "I keep saying Justin (Wadsworth, Canada's head coach) has been a real asset to my training. He has changed me as a skier, but I think just the group of skiers I train with in Canada has been important. The competition is getting so good and we keep pushing each other to be better."

Throughout Saturday's race, Northug captured 15 bonus seconds at the split timing stations, but Cologna was usually second, not allowing Northug to gain a great amount of time on his overall lead. The pack skied together for most of the race, with Harvey and Kershaw, among others, making occasional attack to spread out the group.

With a bit over 1.5 km to go, Daniel Rickardsson made a bit of a break, but a chase group including Northug, Cologna, Harvey and Kershaw caught up with him and then Kershaw tried to make an unsuccessful, significant break from the field as the finish drew near.

The lead skiers started a sprint to the finish with about 200 metres to go, with Northug capturing the lead and some extra bonus seconds over Cologna, 1.8 back. Kershaw was only a few tenths of a second back in third, winning a photo finish over Martin Jaks, who has made a strong challenge for the top few placings overall. Harvey was only a slight margin back in fifth and Ivan Babikov finished 27th.

Kershaw and Harvey are in contention for a podium position in Sunday's final stage, the hill climb"on Alpe Cermis.   S-Magazine

— Cross Country Canada and the Canadian Press contributed to this report