Aroostook County to host Biathlon World Cup
Aroostook County will be the only stop in the United States for the 2016 International Biathlon Union World Cup, a nine-stop circuit featuring the world’s top biathletes competing in a combined cross-country skiing and rifle-shooting event.
The announcement was made Friday afternoon at the Mars Hill office of Pineland Farms Naturally Potatoes, which has agreed to be the lead sponsor at the gold level for the first Biathlon World Cup to come to the United States since 2011.
IBU World Cup 8 will be hosted by the Nordic Heritage Sport Club at its world-class Nordic ski and biathlon venue in Presque Isle, with competition dates planned for Feb. 11-14, 2016. Teams and visitors from the participating countries are expected to arrive in Aroostook County three days prior to the start of competition and depart the region on Feb. 15.
“Our club is very excited to again be hosting an international event of such caliber at the Nordic Heritage Center,” Paul Towle, president of the Nordic Heritage Sport Club, said in a press release. “Events such as these provide significant exposure not only for our world-class facility, but also for our county communities and the state of Maine.”
Towle also highlighted Maine-based Libra Foundation, which recently announced its support for operation and maintenance of the Nordic Heritage facility, as key to the club’s ability to move forward with hosting such activities.
“Hosting major events like the coming Biathlon World Cup is essential to sustaining operations at the Nordic Heritage Center, as well as our ability to continue offering the variety of year-round community programs and recreation opportunities our area residents enjoy,” he added. “The revenue we are able to generate from these events supports the funding of normal operations at NHC year after year.”
Jane Towle, event director, said upwards of 300 of the world’s top male and female biathletes, ages 20 and over, from more than 32 countries are expected to be in Aroostook County for the competition. The biathletes will participate in six competitions at the Nordic Heritage Sport Center venue: sprint, pursuit, and relay in both men’s and women’s divisions.
Organizers, joined by representatives from Pineland Farms Naturally Potatoes, also unveiled on Friday the official event logo, which features the word “biathlon” in a lighter blue with a deeper blue image of a cluster of pine trees appearing in the letters and a silhouette figure of a biathlete skiing.
The 2016 World Cup is the latest in a number of national and international Nordic ski and biathlon events to be hosted at the Nordic Heritage Center, including the IBU Youth/Junior Biathlon World Championships in late February/early March 2014. The last World Cup hosted in The County, in March 2011, had stops in both Presque Isle and Fort Kent.
The 2016 event will mark the first large-scale event hosted in The County since the Nordic Heritage Center has operated independent of direct support provided by the Maine Winter Sports Center. The operation and maintenance of the world-class, four-season sports facility, located just off the Fort Fairfield Road in Presque Isle, are supported in large part by the Libra Foundation, as well as by local businesses and organizations, other donations, club memberships and revenue generated by events, including those sanctioned by the International Biathlon Union.
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