Top 30 Mushers Into Nome

March 17, 2011|By Kortnie Horazdovsky | KTUU.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Top 30 Mushers in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race have made it into Nome. Fifteen of them came in on Wednesday.

The first musher in Wednesday could very well have been the second musher – Ken Anderson and Jessie Royer had a sprint to the finish for ninth place. Anderson ended up on the winning end of that sprint.

Also finishing Wednesday were Aliy Zirkle, DeeDee Jonrowe just two minutes behind, Michael Williams, Jr., Sven Haltmann and Sonny Lindner to round out the Top 15.

Defending champion Lance Mackey came in at 16th place, followed by Michelle Phillips, Martin Buser, Robert Nelson and Rick Swenson to finish out the Top 20.

Cim Smyth, Matt Hayashida, Bruce Linton and Allen Moore all finished Wednesday as well.

The first musher to finish Thursday was Trent Herbst, who was the first musher to reach the race’s halfway point of Iditarod. Herbst came in at 25th place. Kelley Griffin and Ed Stielstra also came in early Thurday morning.

Nicolas Petit, the race’s first rookie finisher, came in at 6:43 a.m. Thursday with a time of 10 days 15 hours, 43 minutes and 1 second. Later in the morning, Kristy Berington and Kelly Maixner, another rookie, finished as well.

Wednesday also saw one scratch. Karin Hendrickson scratched in White Mountain with eight dogs left on her team. The Willow musher said the decision was based on the best interest of her team.

Seventeen teams remain on the trail – six are rookies.

|

|

|