November 8, 2009 E-MAIL PRINT

Masterful domination

by Brion O'Connor/

Carolyn Beckedorff has won five Sise Cup titles in the past nine years.

Carolyn Beckedorff has won five Sise Cup titles in the past nine years.

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Sports breed rivalries. Truth be told, the greatest performances often are born from the greatest rivalries. Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell swapped elbows with the mighty Wilt Chamberlain on his way to 11 NBA titles. Heavyweight champs Muhammad Ali and Smokin’ Joe Frazier staged some epic bouts. On the World Cup skiing stage, Lindsey Vonn of the United States and Maria Riesch of Germany have got a friendly little wrestling match going. And on the New England masters ski-racing circuit, two former University of New Hampshire teammates have been duking it out for the past decade for Sise Cup supremacy.

A quick scan of the Sise Cup winners among women’s masters over the past nine years reveals two names, and two names only — Jessie McAleer and Carolyn Beckedorff. These two Massachusetts natives have proven to be almost unbeatable in the past decade, except when it comes to one another. Since 2001, when McAleer first entered the ranks of masters ski racing, either she or Beckedorff have taken home the season’s top Sise Cup honors. The results reveal a rivalry personified. McAleer has won five crowns, Beckedorff four. Each time McAleer has won, Beckedorff finished second. McAleer also has two second-place finishes (having missed the 2008 season to rehab an injured knee).

“Carolyn’s always pushed the envelope and brought it to our attention that we can not only dominate the women’s field but also put the men in their place,” McAleer says. “She was the first one to really threaten that.”

McAleer quickly took up the beat, returning to ski the masters circuit after a two-year hiatus from the sport. She found her former UNH teammate waiting. “I love the fact that Carolyn and I push each other. I really do,” says the 39-year-old McAleer, who isn’t shy about how much she delights in “girling” the guys on the race course. “We push each other mentally, as well. She’s always very congratulatory of my successes, and I hope I am to her.”

For her part, Beckedorff credits McAleer with forcing her to constantly improve. “It’s an amazing rivalry,” says Beckedorff, 41. “I know if I want to win on any given day, Jessie’s going to be coming after me. I think we both raise each other’s game, and that’s really neat.”

Last season perfectly mirrored this feminine battle royale. McAleer returned to top form after total knee reconstruction, winning the overall 2009 Sise Cup title. Beckedorff, the 2008 champ, finished a close second. However, at masters nationals at Maine’s Sunday River last March, Beckedorff defended the slalom crown she won in 2008. McAleer, racing full out to make up an 18/100ths-of-a-second deficit to Beckedorff after the first heat, straddled a gate in her second run and was disqualified. Beckedorff then took giant slalom in the same fashion. “I knew I had to go balls to the wall, and came up just short, so I don’t have any regrets,” says McAleer.

The wins were sweet redemption for Beckedorff, who saw McAleer eclipse her combined time by 1/100th of a second in the 2006 slalom nationals. Since she wasn’t able to defend her world masters championship won in Austria in 2008, Beckedorff says, “My entire focus this year was on defending those two [national] titles. That was the highlight of my season.”

This keen rivalry has followed two long roads that first intersected in 1988. At the time, Beckedorff and McAleer were teammates on Paul Burton’s UNH ski squad. A rash of injuries, including a blown-out knee and broken tailbone, derailed Beckedorff’s collegiate career, and she never fulfilled the promise she first showed at the Stratton Mountain School. “I got hurt skiing both times, and both times it was at the beginning of the season, so it was a complete bummer,” she says. “One of the things about being an athlete is that there are real lows, and that was a real low for me. I didn’t get to compete the way I wanted to. It was more a time of reflection. I had to consider whether it was the end of my skiing career.”

McAleer, a product of the Mount Washington Valley Ski Team and three years Beckedorff’s junior, eventually garnered All-East honors at UNH despite breaking both her wrists her freshman year. She continued racing after graduating in 1993, joining the pro ski tour created, in part, by Bob Beattie. Poor pay notwithstanding, McAleer stuck with the pro tour for seven years, a career that included a memorable win over Olympian Julie Parisien at Mount Cranmore in 1997 (“One of my most amazing experiences,” she says.).

“After I got out of school, I really felt like the bug still had me, and I felt like a better athlete,” says McAleer. “I’d been doing it for 20 years, and I felt like I had a lot more in me.”

That reveals another common theme. In addition to their alma mater, the two also share a passion that, to those unfamiliar with ski racing’s draw, seems to border on obsession. “We both just absolutely love the sport,” says McAleer. “We both gain a lot of satisfaction out of being able to push ourselves physically and mentally. It really keeps me, at some level, sharp and alive.” Beckedorff, who has endured nine knee operations (“Seven on my right knee and two on my left — I finally had the right knee reconstructed in 1999, when I could barely walk up and down stairs anymore.”), agrees.

“Masters ski racing gives younger athletes a glimpse into the fact that their skiing career is not over if they don’t make the US Ski Team by the time they are 18, 19, 20,” she says. “It’s a great message and reminder that skiing is a lifelong sport.”

Beckedorff, an English major, embarked on a career in finances following her graduation in 1989 but kept her hand in the sport after Burton suggested she apply for a coaching post at Gunstock Ski Area in New Hampshire. There, she not only met her future husband, Tony DiGangi, but also starting running gates again. “I coached there for 10 years, from ’89 to ’99, and it was great, really great,” she says. “I kept racing with the kids I was coaching.”

So, following reconstructive knee surgery in 1999, Beckedorff entered the masters circuit in 2000. A year later, McAleer, after a 48-month stay in Pittsburgh, returned to New England and the Mount Washington Valley ski program, reconnecting with her former coach, Dave Gregory. And the rivalry was born.

Still, despite being constantly linked in the Sise Cup standings, Beckedorff and McAleer admit they’re very different people. Beckedorff is the head trader for a Boston investment firm, a wife and a mom to 7-year-old son Harrison. McAleer is single, and now an internal recruiter for a Boston-based software company. Beckedorff is more structured, while McAleer is more free-form. Beckedorff is a morning person, McAleer a night owl. Both articulate, Beckedorff is more reserved, while McAleer is more gregarious. “Carolyn is much more calm than I am. She’s there to race and spend time with her family,” says McAleer. “I don’t have a family and I’m there to race and win and to socialize a lot more. That’s my nature, and I’ve got the time to do it.”

On the race course, the contrast between these two is equally startling, as they take decidedly different approaches to get remarkably similar results. While both are ruggedly built, Beckedorff is more of a stiletto, a finely tuned technical skier who relies on precision to carve the quickest line. McAleer admits her style leans more toward brute strength and the thrill of competition. “I just love it. There’s really no other place I’d rather be,” says McAleer. “I love going out of the gate. I’m going to give it 110 percent.”

The same can be said for their mental approach. “People think I’m really competitive, but my competitiveness starts the minute I’m in the starting gate and ends the moment I cross the finish line,” says Beckedorff. “Jessie’s the complete opposite. She’s got her game face on as she drives into the parking lot. You actually couldn’t find more completely different types of ski racers.”

Says McAleer: “Mentally, I’m not shaken by terrain or weather or other people. Actually, that stuff tends to jack me up and I get even more excited. It brings me to a different level.”

Neither has any intention of slowing down. Both remark how they respect and admire the masters racers who compete well into their 70s, 80s and even 90s. “I imagine I’ll race forever, but I think my schedule will start to bump up against my son’s as he starts to race more,” Beckedorff says, adding that Harrison also has reaped the benefits of the masters ski racing lifestyle.

“You get the chance to meet amazing people from all walks of life,” Beckedorff says. “There are racers who raced on the World Cup, racers who use to be part of the 10th Mountain Division, racers who raced in college and high school, and people who just decided to try it for the first time as adults. All these people come together every weekend, some driving as far as Long Island, Manhattan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and upstate New York, so they can race.

“Every one of these racers has another profession; ski racing is just their passion,” she adds. “They range in age from 18 into the 90s, and each one of them dedicates themselves each weekend to hurling themselves down the mountain as fast as they can, and then look forward to talking to each other about their runs.”

McAleer echoes the same sentiments. When asked how long she intends to race masters, she answers without hesitation: “Forever. At nationals, you should see some of the older folks who get up there. One guy was like 92. He was part of the 10th Mountain Division. He gets up there on the podium, and he’s shaped like a question mark. And he’s got this gold medal hanging off his chest. I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah!’ ”

“Ski racing is scary sometimes, because you don’t want to get hurt,” McAleer says. “It’s scary ’cause it’s asking a lot to push yourself like that. And you’ve got to mentally jack yourself up to get in the gate and do the best you can. And physically, you get banged up. So, when you’re 89, slipping on a GS suit, getting yourself mentally and physically prepared, driving four hours, tuning your skis, getting up at 7 a.m. to get on the hill, that’s the type of stuff that keeps you alive.”

Regardless of their long-range plans to keep racing well into their AARP years, neither Beckedorff nor McAleer are getting too far ahead of themselves. Both are setting their sights on the upcoming Sise Cup season and on the 2010 nationals in Sun Valley, Idaho. Knowing that McAleer isn’t about to back down. Beckedorff admits she has “probably trained harder this spring, summer and fall than I ever have. I guess I am competitive in that way, because I want to bring my ‘A’ game.”

McAleer, meanwhile, spent two weeks this past summer skiing in Chile, and says she felt really dialed into her technique. “I think I skied the best slalom of my life down there,” she says. “I had an epiphany. I felt really strong. So I’m feeling really, really good about this season.”

Which means the rest of the competition can probably plan to sit back and simply enjoy the fireworks.

For more information on the New England Sise Cup series, visit nemasters.org.

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