Balmain Cup 2003
Balmain (Cup) Boys and Girls Don’t Cry - by Adrian Beresford-Wylie - Courtesy of CAC's 'Frozen Acres'
‘Balmain’, the word conjures up visions of terraced houses and cappuccinos or perhaps Parisian fashion and fine perfume. Or Mother-in-Law on a September Saturday, complete with stinging corn snow and minimal visibility.
Yes indeed, no fine perfume or frothy coffee for CAC participants and supporters on the morning of Saturday 6 September as the 70th staging of the Balmain Cup competition was held at Guthega.
An unfortunate clash with the junior National Cross Coutry championships deprived us on some of our (and the nation’s) best young skiers and sadly put a dent in our hopes of winning the Cup but it did not dampen the enthusiasm of the Club members who participated in the event.
Our team was a mixture of youth and experience, which is as it should be, and a number of Club members had their first taste of competing in the Balmain Cup.
It is a measure of the Club’s spirit that the current President Jenny McLeod and former President Lyndall Hatch stepped into the breach to compete in the cross country section. Both skiers had completed the Kosciusko Tour (Thredbo to Perisher) in the morning and, after that warm up, were raring to tackle the 4 km course in the afternoon. Remarkably, while Lyndall has been manager of numerous CAC Balmain Cup teams in the past this was her first time as a competitor.
As always, we began with slalom and giant slalom on Mother in Law. Our team of young guns, comprising Andrew Circosta, Nick Beresford-Wylie, Stephen Peel, Laura Peel, Grace Murphy and super sub Michael East (also Team Manager) put on a fine show.
Visibility was poor and we were up against it with Guthega’s team of Austrian World Cup rejects pounding the gates like there was no tomorrow and with Cooma fielding Andrew Macdonald as its lead skier (Andrew was fresh from his brilliant 5th and 6th places in the Australian Nationals the week before and is now knocking on the door of the national squad). The young CAC team bought credit to the Club, however and we finished the Alpine sections of the competition in fifth place.
It was then on to the snowboarding. We were represented by Mark Mylek, Richard Sanders and Andrew Circosta (who competed in all disciplines). Although the competition was running late and visibility had worsened, very solid performances from our team maintained our position.
The competition finished with the cross country leg. Our team was bolstered by the presence of Katie Calder who elected to compete although she ill The team was led off by Andrew Circosta. Katie filled the second slot followed by Nick Beresford-Wylie, Lyndall Hatch and Jenny McLeod. The race was two laps of the Guthega 2km Nordic loop and the team performed well with Andrew and Katie giving us a great start and our other skiers pushing themselves to the limit for the honor of the Club. We gave it our best shot but it wasn’t quite good enough to see the Cup brought to the CAC. In the overall competition Guthega finished up in the first place, narrowly edging out Cooma with CAC placed fifth.
Later that night competitors gathered at Guthega Ski Club for drinks before heading to the Guthega Alpine Hotel for dinner.
| CLUB | GS | SL | SB | XC | TOTAL |
| Cooma | 97.38% | 92.65% | 100.00% | 100.00% | 390.03% |
| Guthega | 100.00% | 100.00% | 83.10% | 89.44% | 372.54% |
| Brindabella | 97.14% | 91.64% | 94.64% | 69.89% | 353.31% |
| Tate | 92.31% | 86.82% | 88.42% | 46.42% | 313.97% |
| CAC | 89.51% | 79.37% | 69.19% | 68.19% | 306.26% |
| ACTP | 70.74% | 69.13% | 0.00% | 56.55% | 196.42% |
| Slalom | Andrew Macdonald (Cooma) |
| Giant Slalom | Andrew Macdonald (Cooma) |
| Snowboard | Anders Auer (Cooma) |
| Cross Country | Anthony Evans (Cooma) |
| Dudzinski Trophy | Dave Arens (Cooma) |
| Dudzinski Trophy - Female | Wendy Pinkerton (Tate) |