First Annual XC Ski Week "Clubs Competition"
It was a pity that the compere of the "End of XC Ski Week Presentations" momentarily lost the spreadsheet with all the results of the Club Competition on it whilst giving out the prize, but he did get the main things right, Cooma Ski Club - 1st with 97 points, Maranatha Ski Club 2nd with 41 points and Telemark Ski Club - 3rd with 39 points. (1 point = 1 person per event)
It was a mighty effort by Telemark Ski Club considering the lodge only has 8 beds, half as many as Maranatha and Cooma Ski Club having 19. Maranatha would have had a stronger showing if not for a bad case of Maranatha-Bali Belly taking hold of their lodge resulting in a large number of regular (and highly competitive) XC Week participants being nullified for the week.
In the true spirit of XC Ski Week and the Clubs Competition, Cooma Ski Club set about making sure that they won the Brass Ski, by turning up in numbers to most of the events. The Club was well represented through-out the week with 21 competitors in the Cooma Open and equal 1st with KAC with 17 in the KAC Classic. They also had the most people in the Boonoona Open, Night Relays, Sundeck Cup. Coffee Tour No 2 and the Snowy Mountain Classic. Cooma Ski Club richly deserved their win.
Cooma Ski Club participants at the Coffee Tour.
Cooma Ski Club not only won the Brass Ski but won a gift voucher to the value of $1,000 to be spent on a club function at the Sundeck Hotel or the Tathra Hotel. Much thanks to Cliff Wallis for again being at the forefront of helping promote XC skiing.
To round out the top 6 participating clubs, we had RAN Ski Club (36 points), CAC (31 points) and KAC (30 points). A total of 25 lodge-based clubs took part. The whole exercise has given PXC valuable stats that show which of the lodges had members taking part. Some of the clubs which we know either have or have had a strong XC skiing base, had little participation in the week which shows that they need more information or motivation to help them to book ahead for XC Ski Week.
New clubs to the area were the Mulleney Ski Club and the Gilgandra Ski Club, both of which were later found to be completely fictitious, hence the name of Mullet Ski Club was created to encompass both non-clubs.
A late addition to the Ski Club list was the Island Bend Ski Club or as Arnold D'bras puts it, the Royal Island Bend Ski Club (RIBSC). Whilst strong in spirit they were disqualified as there is no permanent structure to be seen at Island Bend, although they do boast an air strip. Tents, unless very permanent and very large e.g. the Taj Mahal, and camper vans don’t qualify.
The Clubs Competition was a great success in creating much interest between the clubs. As stated repeatedly, PXC reserves the right to change the rules to promote a healthy competition in the 2019 XC Ski Week. To you aspiring clubs, rest assured Cooma Ski Club will be handicapped so that other clubs with strong participation have a chance of winning next year's competition. A press release will be released in 2019 in plenty of time to detail revised rules/handicaps.
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Enjoy the rest of the ski season.
