PORTLAND – Like most of the people who attended some portion of the biathlon World Cup in Fort Kent last March, Mike McNamara and his wife, Pat, came away impressed.

But Mike McNamara wasn’t just any spectator. As the chief executive officer of Peoples Heritage Bank, a division of the Portland-based Banknorth Group Inc., McNamara and other company officials saw even more potential in biathlon and Aroostook County.

McNamara was on hand at a Monday morning press conference as Gov. John Baldacci announced Banknorth’s six-year agreement to become the title sponsor for biathlon in the United States. Biathlon is a sport that combines cross-country skiing and target shooting.

McNamara said Banknorth is committing more than $1 million to move the U.S. Biathlon Association’s headquarters to Portland, bring the 2005 U.S. Olympic trials to northern Maine and – officials are hoping – attract another World Cup stop in a few years.

The USBA will be the first Olympic sport to have its governing body located in Maine.

“This truly is a historic day for the state of Maine,” Baldacci said, speaking at the offices of the Libra Foundation, a private foundation that has given monetary support to the Maine Winter Sports Center.

“It’s the first Olympic sports association headquartered in our state,” the governor added, “and to be able to have these [Olympic] trials and World Cup events in our state, I think, is a tremendous benefit and economic boost to our state, and it reinforces the fact that Maine can win in not only national competitions but international competitions.”

The MWSC has facilities in the Aroostook County towns of Presque Isle, Mars Hill and Fort Kent, including the 10th Mountain Lodge, a site of the 2004 World Cup biathlon.

The terms of the agreement include moving the offices of the USBA from Colchester, Vt., to Portland in the next year; Banknorth becomes the title sponsor for both the USBA and biathlon coverage on the television channel Outdoor Life Network; and locating the Olympic trials to Fort Kent, which last month was the site of the U.S. team trials for the world championships.

The Olympic trials will be held in December in preparation for the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin, Italy.

It will be at least the second Olympic trials held in Maine. In 1952, the U.S. men’s Nordic ski team was selected at Black Mountain in Rumford.

Biathlon is the only Nordic skiing sport with a regular television presence in the United States, thanks to the Outdoor Life Network’s coverage of the World Cup.

There likely will be no World Cup events in 2005-06 as the national and international athletes turn their attention to the Turin games, but MWSC executive director Andy Shepard said the hope is for the center to be back on the World Cup schedule. The ultimate goal is to have at least one World Cup in Aroostook County – both Fort Kent and Presque Isle have the facilities to stage an event – and eventually have two cups every other year.

The challenge will be housing all those people, Shepard said.

For last year’s World Cup, the University of Maine at Fort Kent rushed to complete a 150-bed dormitory for competitors and officials. Those rooms now house students and will be unavailable if the cup comes back to Fort Kent.

“The next World Cup is going to be bigger,” Shepard said. “There will be more people, more competitors, more spectators, and not only do we have more of anyone coming but we’ll have lost 150 beds in the equation. So we have to have something to replace that. That really is what as a state and as a region we have to focus on.”

McNamara said the bank has heard some interest in improving the infrastructure of northern Maine.

“We’ve had some casual conversations with customers at the bank about is there an opportunity here for another hotel, that sort of thing,” he said. “I think clearly there are people looking ahead.”

Among those eager for the future are the athletes themselves. Wearing white golf shirts with the Banknorth logo on one sleeve, up-and-coming U.S. biathletes Tim Burke, Walt Shepard, Annalies Cook, Haley Johnson and BethAnn Ellingson talked about the importance of Banknorth’s sponsorship.

The young athletes are well aware that biathlon is the only sport in which U.S. athletes have never won a medal at a Winter Olympics.

“Being able to train in my home state has always, I think, given me a little boost,” said Walt Shepard, son of Andy Shepard and a Yarmouth native now living in Fort Kent full time. “And now that we have the support with all these organizations collaborating, we’ve been on the brink really for a long time now of having some real international success. Now with this cooperation we’re closer to that more than ever.”

Johnson said Banknorth’s sponsorship of downhill skiing and hockey could help raise the profile of the lesser-known biathlon. Banknorth also sponsors three Maine athletes: Alpine skiers Kristen Clark and Julie Parisien, and Nordic skier Marcus Nash.

Banknorth is also the title sponsor of the New England Nordic Skiing Association and the official bank of the U.S. Ski Team. The company is a sponsor of the 2005 Paralympic World Championships, which will be held at the MWSC.

“We’re delighted to be involved in this,” McNamara said.

Peoples also sponsors the Beach to Beacon 10-kilometer road race held in Cape Elizabeth.

Bill Lilly, the interim president of the USBA board of directors, said the offices have moved around quite a bit over the years.

In the 1970s the USBA was located in Jericho, Vt., because of the proximity to the National Guard, which provided sponsorship early on. The association moved to Lake Placid, N.Y., for the 1980 Winter Olympics, but after the USBA encountered problems trying to build a roller loop for summer training, the offices moved to Burlington, Vt., and recently to suburban Colchester.