Mackey Becomes Only Person To Win Two Major Dog Races in a Row
NOME, Alaska — Lance Mackey won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday, becoming the first musher to win major long-distance North American sled dog races back-to-back.
Al Grillo / AP
Lance Mackey of Fairbanks, Alaska, kisses one of his lead dogs, Larry, left, after his Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race victory in Nome, Alaska, Tuesday.
Mr. Mackey crossed under the famed burled arch in downtown Nome early Tuesday evening, completing the 1,100-mile Iditarod in nine days, five hours, and eight minutes.
He celebrated as he came down Nome's Front Street, alternately waving a fist in the air, then high-fiving some of the estimated 1,000 fans who lined the street, braving subzero temperatures. His family mobbed him at the finish line.
"Dreams do come true, Mama, they do," Mr. Mackey said after the race, fighting back tears.
"This is my passion," he told reporters, adding he was proud to follow in his father's footsteps and joked about being thankful his father was a musher and not a lawyer.
On February 20, Mr. Mackey won his third consecutive Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, a 1,000-mile race between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon. With only 12 days rest, Mr. Mackey took 13 of his 16 dogs from the Yukon Quest to Willow for the March 4 official start of the Iditarod. In the two races, the dog team covered a distance equivalent to mushing to Salt Lake City from Boston.
Mr. Mackey, 36, joins his father, Dick, and brother, Rick, as Iditarod champions. Both won the race wearing bib no. 13 and each the sixth time they ran the Iditarod. Lance Mackey camped out for days at the Iditarod headquarters last June to be the first person to sign up for this year's race in order to select the no. 13 bib.
Many mushers have long believed it would not be possible to win both races in the same year with the same dogs because the animals would need more time to recover from one grueling race before launching off on another. But Mr. Mackey said he wasn't pushed much in the Yukon Quest, and it served as a good mental and physical training run for the dogs.
"I kept saying I want to be the one to prove that wrong. For those who don't believe it can be done, I thrive on underestimation. Don't ever doubt that I can't do something, I lived through cancer," he said.
