Biathlon logistics a daunting task Plans for transporting athletes, spectators, others falling into place

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FORT KENT – In planning the logistics of the 2004 Biathlon World Cup next month, organizers have addressed more than a few unknowns.

Among them is how to move coaches, officials, the expected 300 athletes, and spectators numbering in the thousands through and around Fort Kent, a town with three main streets, two traffic lights and no major public transportation network.

Like most other aspects of hosting the World Cup event March 3-6, getting people from one place to another is falling into place, thanks to local volunteers.

“It’s been cumbersome trying to get it all organized,” Gary Daigle, a Fort Kent volunteer in charge of World Cup transportation, said. “But it’s all possible because we have a great group of hardworking and dedicated volunteers.”

It’s not just people that have to get around. Daigle and his crew have overseen delivery of the competition targets from the Olympic venue in Salt Lake City and are responsible for their safe return.

The next challenge, Daigle said, is getting the athletes’ gear from Lake Placid, N.Y., to Fort Kent in the hours between the end of a competition there and the start of the World Cup.

The athletes will arrive in northern Maine with one piece of luggage each, plus a rifle. Everything else – skis, poles and related gear – is under Daigle’s supervision.

At 11 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 29, volunteers will begin loading a van in Lake Placid. By 5 p.m., Daigle said, it will be on the road heading north, with a scheduled arrival early Monday, in time to unload the gear so the athletes can begin training on the course.

“It’s a tight schedule,” he said. “It’s the one that makes me the most nervous.”

The athletes are being lodged in three locations in Fort Kent and Frenchville.

Two 24-passenger vans, donated by MBNA, will shuttle the athletes to and from the competition venue, Daigle said.

Only in very specific cases will people be allowed to drive directly to the competition venue during the event, Daigle said.

SAD 27 and the Madawaska School Department have combined to donate the use of 25 school buses and drivers to shuttle spectators from four designated parking areas around Fort Kent to the competition.

“We are asking people not to park in town,” Daigle said. “We really want them to use the designated park-and-ride lots around town.”

As the buses drive through Fort Kent to and from the biathlon site, he said, they will stop to let people out downtown. “We hope people will want to spend time in town,” he said.

Parking lots are located at Fort Kent Village on the west side of town, the Knights of Columbus Hall on the east side of U.S. Route 1, the site of the former Fort Kent drive-in on Route 161 coming in from Caribou, and at Fort Kent Community High School on Route 11. Additional parking is available at the Irving-Mainway parking lot across from the International Bridge.

Buses will run every 15 minutes, and additional transportation will be provided by the University of Maine at Fort Kent and Valley Motors Inc.

“If everyone uses the park-and-ride transportation, there should not be a huge traffic impact in downtown Fort Kent,” Daigle said.

As if getting the athletes, coaches, staff, officials and spectators to and from the event were not enough to do, Daigle also has coordinated transportation of scores of media people descending on Fort Kent.

One television production crew staying in Edmundston, New Brunswick, has to be at the venue four hours before the start of competition every day, he said. Another group staying in Caribou has the same schedule.

The vice president of Daigle & Houghton Inc., a local trucking company, Daigle is accustomed to moving large quantities of goods from one place to another.

“It’s going pretty well,” he said. “But people and cargo are very different,” he added with a laugh.

“If people use the park-and-ride that Gary [Daigle] and his crew have organized, any increase in downtown traffic should be manageable,” Don Guimond, town manager, said Thursday. “We are not anticipating any real problems.”

For those driving to Fort Kent for the World Cup, Guimond said the four parking lots are the best option.

“Those will be a great way to go,” he said. “That way you don’t have to worry about finding a parking place in town.”

Each of the four lots and corresponding buses will be color-coded, and volunteers at each lot will assist with traffic flow.

Many of the athletes will arrive in Presque Isle fresh from competition in Lake Placid on a chartered Boeing 737.

“It’s a bit unusual for a 737 to land here, but it’s certainly not the largest plane we have had,” Scott Wardwell, director of the Presque Isle airport, said Thursday. “We also expect to see a little more than average air service.”

Normal flights in and out of the airport are on smaller, 34-passenger Saab 340s, Wardwell said. To accommodate the larger, 136-passenger commercial airliner, he said, his staff has readied a larger de-icing machine not in regular use.

In addition, baggage from the biathletes’ flights will be loaded by volunteers directly into trucks and taken to Fort Kent.

When the final race has been run and the closing ceremonies have ended, Daigle’s crew still will be hard at work.

“We have buses to shuttle half the athletes to Montreal and the other half to Portland to get to other competitions,” Daigle said.