The top three Iditarod teams this year are all Alaska Native mushers. “It’s almost unheard of aside from some of the earlier days in the race when there was more participation from rural teams and Native teams,” said second-place finisher Pete Kaiser.
Richie Diehl and his seven-dog team arrive in third place in Nome on Tuesday. on Tuesday afternoon, he became just the sixth Alaska Native musher to win the Iditarod in the race’s 50 years.
Just four Alaska Native mushers started this year’s Iditarod. Mike Williams Jr. from Akiak is also competing. Redington, 40, joins a list of Iditarod Alaska Native champions that includes Kaiser, 2011 champion John Baker, Jerry Riley who won in 1976, Emmitt Peters who won in 1975 and Karl Huntington who won in 1974.Diehl and Kaiser, however, live in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, one of the few rural hot spots where major, competitive dog races still take place. The two young mushers are at the forefront of a resurgence of rural mushing.
The three teams ran at a similar pace in the first half of the race, near the front of the field, and arrived in Kaltag within about 30 minutes of one another, with about 350 miles to the finish line. Diehl, 36, recalled some good-natured teasing at one of the checkpoints where he asked Kaiser how long he was planning to rest. Diehl’s third-place Iditarod finish is his best yet. Before, his highest finish was last year, when he got to Nome in sixth place.
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