Athletes aged 45 and older compete in the Maine Senior Games cycling event in Brunswick on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. Cooper Sullivan photo
BRUNSWICK — Winning the Maine Senior Games’ cycling race may not compare to the prestige of a Tour de France victory, but that hardly mattered for the athletes who competed Sunday.
This was the fourth straight year the 20-kilometer race was held at Brunswick Landing. It was also one of the largest fields, with 45 cyclists from across Maine and New Hampshire competing.
The 10k time trials and 20k road race attracted cyclists aged 45 and older. Maine and New Hampshire collaborate on the Senior Games cycling race and host one event. The 2023 event featured a field in the low 30s, organizers said.
Advertisement
Gary Prince of Stratham, N.H., said Sunday he was trying to earn a trip to the 2025 national Senior Games, held next July and August in Des Moines, Iowa. The top-three finishers in each age division qualify for the national competition.
Prince, 82, has been cycling for over 30 years and won competitions up and down the East Coast. He and his wife Lorraine center their vacations around where the next road race is. Once Gary signs up, they pack their car with a makeshift mechanic station in the trunk and make a trip of it.
“His legs are aching, and I ask him ‘Why keep doing it?’ Lorraine said about her husband in between Sunday’s races. “He wants to do it. He never gives up.”
“It’s a good way to meet people and to bike at the same time,” Gary added.
Race results were not available Monday at press time.
Advertisement
For other athletes, like Kathleen Judice of Dayton, the Senior Games are the best opportunity to challenge themselves and compete against a field of one.
“I don’t have the foggiest idea,” Judice, 54, said prior to her first official bike race since the 1990s. “I’m just going to push myself and see what I can do.”
Judice, 54, and her husband Stephen, 53, signed up for the Brunswick 10-kilometer time trial less than 24 hours earlier, after the masters track and field meet they were participating in Augusta that Saturday finished at a reasonable hour.
Athletes aged 45 and older compete in the Maine Senior Games cycling event in Brunswick on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. Cooper Sullivan photo
Even as a lifelong athlete and current track and field coach, Judice is a Senior Games rookie. She hopes to qualify for 2025 Nationals in one of the triathlon sports. She also wants keep signing up for other events, like buoy toss or cornhole just because they look like fun.
Advertisement
“The community is so friendly, welcoming and helpful,” Judice said. “I didn’t have the right size shotput at a track and field event and someone said ‘Here, just borrow mine.’”
The community aspect is one of the reasons Suzanne LaCroix of Standish stays involved as a Maine Senior Games volunteer. Since starting in 2017, LaCroix tries to help out at as many events as she can.
On Sunday, she and 12-15 other volunteers were tasked with standing along the 2.1-mile-long loop around Southern Maine Community College, the Brunswick Rec Center and the Naval Aviation Museum to direct traffic- both cars and cyclists. Although it wasn’t an official task, LaCroix would cheer on every athlete with the same enthusiasm as the last.
“Everyone that participates encourages each other,” she said. “People are now friends and they have their own support groups.”
LaCroix wasn’t the only cheerleader, as a crowd of about 20 stood by the finish line. Signs saying “Chafe Ur Dreams” and “Use Yer Legs” were waved during each lap.
Advertisement
Volunteers are crucial to the operations of Maine Senior Games. As Karen Reardon, the organization’s lead coordinator, explained to the athletes beforehand, safety concerns have seen the number of cycling races around the country go down.
Reardon did not hear of any course safety issues on Sunday and considered it overall to be a “good day,” a testament to the volunteer team after early morning car trouble and technical issues with the timing system almost put a damper on the event.
“There’s a bigger cycling community that wants to keep everything rolling,” Reardon said. “They love their sport, they have a passion for their sport, so they’re here to try to do their thing. We’re here to try to make that happen.”
TJ Biel scored 21 points and Newport native Ace Flagg added 10 points and seven rebounds as the University of Maine men’s basketball team held on for a 74-70 win over the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Saturday in Newark, New Jersey.
Logan Carey added 11 points and five assists for the Black Bears, who improve to 3-15 overall and 1-2 in the conference. Yanis Bamba chipped in 14 points.
Maine led by seven at the half, but NJIT went on a 13-0 run in the first four minutes to take a 43-37 lead. The Black Bears recovered and took the lead on a dunk by Keelan Steele with 7:53 left and held on for the win.
Sebastian Robinson scored 24 points and Ari Fulton grabbed 11 rebounds for NJIT (7-11, 2-1).
Clarissa Sabattis, Chief of the Houlton Band of Maliseets, foreground, and other leaders of Maine’s tribes are welcomed by lawmakers into the House Chamber in March, 2023 in Augusta. (Robert F. Bukaty, /Associated Press)
Maine’s gambling landscape is set to expand after Gov. Janet Mills decided Thursday to let tribes offer online casino games, but numerous questions remain over the launch of the new market and how much it will benefit the Wabanaki Nations.
Namely, there is no concrete timeline for when the new gambling options that make Maine the eighth “iGaming” state will become available. Maine’s current sports betting market that has been dominated by the Passamaquoddy Tribe through its partnership with DraftKings is evidence that not all tribes may reap equal rewards.
A national anti-online gaming group also vowed to ask Maine voters to overturn the law via a people’s veto effort and cited its own poll finding a majority of Mainers oppose online casino gaming.
Advertisement
Here are the big remaining questions around iGaming.
1. When will iGaming go into effect?
The law takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns this year. Adjournment is slated for mid-April, but Mills spokesperson Ben Goodman noted it is not yet known when lawmakers will actually finish their work.
2. Where will the iGaming revenue go?
The iGaming law gives the state 18% of the gross receipts, which will translate into millions of dollars annually for gambling addiction and opioid use treatment funds, Maine veterans, school renovation loans and emergency housing relief.
Leaders of the four federally recognized tribes in Maine highlighted the “life-changing revenue” that will come thanks to the decision from Mills, a Democrat who has clashed with the Wabanaki Nations over the years over more sweeping tribal sovereignty measures.
But one chief went so far Thursday as to call her the “greatest ever” governor for “Wabanaki economic progress.”
Advertisement
3. What gaming companies will the tribes work with?
DraftKings has partnered with the Passamaquoddy to dominate Maine’s sports betting market, while the Penobscot Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the Mi’kmaq Nation have partnered with Caesars Entertainment to garner a smaller share of the revenue.
Wall Street analysts predicted the two companies will likely remain the major players in Maine’s iGaming market.
The partnership between the Passamaquoddy and DraftKings has brought in more than $100 million in gross revenue since 2024, but the Press Herald reported last month that some members of the tribe’s Sipayik reservation have criticized Chief Amkuwiposohehs “Pos” Bassett, saying they haven’t reaped enough benefits from the gambling money.
4. Has Mills always supported gambling measures?
The iGaming measure from Rep. Ambureen Rana, D-Bangor, factored into a long-running debate in Maine over gambling. In 2022, lawmakers and Mills legalized online sports betting and gave tribes the exclusive rights to offer it beginning in 2023.
But allowing online casino games such as poker and roulette in Maine looked less likely to become reality under Mills. Her administration had previously testified against the bill by arguing the games are addictive.
Advertisement
But Mills, who is in the final year of her tenure and is running in the high-profile U.S. Senate primary for the chance to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Thursday she would let the iGaming bill become law without her signature. She said she viewed iGaming as a way to “improve the lives and livelihoods of the Wabanaki Nations.”
5. Who is against iGaming?
Maine’s two casinos in Bangor and Oxford opposed the iGaming bill, as did Gambling Control Board Chair Steve Silver and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, among other opponents.
Silver noted Hollywood Casino Bangor and Oxford Casino employ nearly 1,000 Mainers, and he argued that giving tribes exclusive rights to iGaming will lead to job losses.
He also said in a Friday interview the new law will violate existing statutes by cutting out his board from iGaming oversight.
“I don’t think there’s anything the board can do at this point,” Silver said.
Advertisement
The National Association Against iGaming has pledged to mount an effort to overturn the law via a popular referendum process known as the “people’s veto.” But such attempts have a mixed record of success.
While influenza remains the top concern for Maine public health experts, other viruses are also currently circulating, including norovirus and COVID-19.
“Influenza is clearly the main event,” said Dr. Cheryl Liechty, a MaineHealth infectious disease specialist. “The curve in terms of the rise of influenza cases was really steep.”
Maine reported 1,343 flu cases for the week ending Jan. 3, an uptick from the 1,283 cases recorded the previous week, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospitalizations increased to 147 from 108 during the same time periods.
“I hope the peak is now,” Liechty said, “but I’m not really sure.”
Advertisement
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday that all of New England, except for Vermont, is currently experiencing “very high” levels of influenza. Vermont is in the “moderate” category.
“What we are seeing, overwhelmingly, is the flu,” said Andrew Donovan, associate vice president of infection prevention for Northern Light Health. “We are seeing both respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses in our patients.”
Norovirus also appears to be circulating, although due to its short duration and because it’s less severe than the flu, public health data on the illness — which causes gastrointestinal symptoms that typically resolve within a few days — is not as robust.
“Norovirus is the gastrointestinal scourge of New England winters and cruise ships,” Liechty said.
According to surveillance data at wastewater treatment plants in Portland, Bangor and Lewiston, norovirus levels detected in those communities are currently “high.” The treatment plants participate in WastewaterSCAN, which reports virus levels in wastewater through a program run by Stanford University and Emory University.
Advertisement
Dr. Genevieve Whiting, a Westbrook pediatrician and secretary of the Maine chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said viruses are prevalent right now, especially the flu and norovirus.
“For my patients right now, it’s a rare encounter that I hear everyone in a family has been healthy,” Whiting said. “I’ve had families come in and say their entire family has had norovirus. Several of my patients have had ER visits for suspected norovirus, where they needed IV fluids because they were dehydrated.”
Both Liechty and Whiting said they are seeing less respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, likely because there has been good uptake of the new RSV vaccine, which is recommended for older people and those who are pregnant. The vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2023.
“The RSV vaccine has been a real success, as RSV was a leading cause of hospitalizations for babies,” Whiting said.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases increased to 610 in the final week of 2025, compared to 279 the previous week. Influenza and COVID-19 vaccinations are available at primary care, pharmacies and clinics across the state.
Advertisement
“If you haven’t gotten your flu shot yet,” Liechty said, “you should beat a hasty path to get your shot.”
