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Alex Harvey can’t count the number of kilometres he has logged on his personal odometer over 12 years on the national cross-country ski team.

So while he might seem like an overnight success story, Harvey credits the innumerable training hours of skiing, cycling and running — with no fans on the sidelines cheering him on — for creating the two most magical weeks of his career.

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“Hard work pays off,” Harvey told Postmedia on Sunday after claiming silver in the last World Cup race of the season in his home province of Quebec. “I’m just having so much fun.”

Fun, indeed.

First, Harvey won the prestigious 50-km title at the world championships in Lahti, Finland. Then he flew across the Atlantic Ocean for the World Cup final on the Plains of Abraham. In front of thousands of adoring subjects, Harvey turned the battlefield into his personal playground in a sport that historically belongs to Norway, Sweden and Finland.

Photo by JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / AFP/Getty Images

“Just imagine if someone came to Canada from Japan and ended up being the best hockey player,” said Dominick Gauthier, an Olympic analyst for Radio-Canada. “Imagine how stunned and surprised and shocked we all would be.

“Well, Alex Harvey is that to the Scandinavians. It’s insane.”

The 28-year-old from nearby Saint-Ferreol-les-Neiges, Que. won gold Friday in the sprint. He followed that up with a fourth-place finish in Saturday’s 15-kilometre mass start.

On Sunday, Harvey just missed out on gold by the toe of his ski boot in a photo finish with Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo.

“Klaebo is the best sprinter in the world, and in the end, he proved that,” Harvey said. “I lunged with everything I had, so there is nothing to be ashamed of.”