Iditarod 2018 – Day 12
The next 10 finishers showed up overnight and the race has moved to the coast as the Red Lantern left Kaltag.
Rob Cooke gave up his battle with a stomach flu and scratched at Kaltag. He has been fighting it for some time to keep his Siberians on the trail.
Alan Eischens scratched at Koyuk after an arm injury that restricted his ability to care for his team.
Marcelle Fressineau has scratched at Shaktoolik. She left but returned to the checkpoint in the best interests of herself and her team.
Bad News: “At approximately 12:15a.m. today, Blonde, a five-year-old male from the race team of Katherine Keith (bib #51), died at the Koyuk checkpoint. Blonde had been dropped there earlier in the day and was being treated by veterinarians for signs of pneumonia.”
Standings at 9:30PM CDT:
Finished at Nome
11 Matt Hall (15)Q
12 Aaron Burmeister (64)
13 Matthew Failor (55)
14 Ketil Reitan (54)
15 Aliy Zirkle (31)
16 Jessie Royer (36)
17 Kelly Maixner (52)
18 Mats Pettersson (3)
19 Michelle Phillips (18)
20 Lars Monsen (61)
21 Hugh Neff (68)
22 Anna Berington (4)
23 Michi Konno (63)R
24 Jeff King (40)
Beyond Safety
25 Michael Williams Jr. (27)
26 Katherine Keith (51)
Beyond White Mountain
27 Rick Casillo (9)
28 Martin Buser (28)
29 Cody Strathe (2)
30 Andrew Nolan (56)R
31 Noah Pereira (49)
32 Tom Knolmayer (43)
33 Charley Bejna (38)
At White Mountain
34 Emily Maxwell (58)R
35 Aaron Peck (50)
36 Kristy Berington (20)
37 Andy Pohl (12)R
38 Larry Daugherty (14)
39 Jim Lanier (32)
40 Scott Janssen (23)
41 Monica Zappa (48)
42 Brett Bruggeman (37)R
Beyond Elim
43 Lev Shvarts (22)
44 Misha Wiljes (19)
At Elim
45 Bradley Farquhar (65)R
46 Peter Fleck (67)R
47 Jeff Deeter (45)
48 Dave Delcourt (57)
49 Tim Muto (42)R
Beyond Koyuk
50 Shaynee Traska (5)R
At Koyuk
51 Anja Radano (24)R
52 Meredith Mapes (16)R
53 Jason Stewart (66)R
54 Magnus Kaltenborn (6)
Beyond Kaltag
55 Steve Watkins (59)
56 Tara Cicatello (44)R
The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, while italics indicates Yukon Quest winners. The numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers. The small “R” indicates a total rookie, while the small “Q” indicates an Iditarod rookie who has completed a Yukon Quest.
These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.
This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.
All posts on the Iditarod can be seen by selecting “Iditarod” from the Category box on the right sidebar or clicking on the Sled Dog graphic.
6 comments
Was wondering if any Norwegians had ever won the Iditarod before? Well, I just looked it up and answered that question. Looks like Joar is the first, but I noticed that one guy from Norway won a couple of times, Robert Sorlie. That was before I started following it.
No women in the top 10 this year, dang! Looks like Tara Cicatello is good for the Red Lantern, although she’s not that far behind Steve Watkins. You never know.
Best thing so far is that I haven’t heard of any dogs being hurt (or worse) so far. I watch the races for the dogs. I am an unrepentant animal lover, and as you have probably figured out, am goofy for dogs. Got it honestly from my daddy! At one time, he had 13 beagles in tow on the farm where he grew up.
Robert Sørlie ‘owned’ Fairbanks starts of the Iditarod. He really likes that trail and is very fast on it. Scandinavia is always represented at the Iditarod.
Tara is only 15 minutes behind Steve out of Kaltag, so it depends on her will and her puppies.
Sled dogs are the most amazing of all the working dogs. Their physiology is off the charts. There isn’t another mammal on the planet that can eat 20K+ calories a day and lose weight. As hyper as my Mother’s poodle was, if he ate more than a cup of kibble a day he would baloon, which he did because Mom didn’t want his bowl to be empty.
I think the biggest problem has been the relative warmth on the trail. The puppies like it around 0°F.
Well, I guess I spoke too soon about all the dogs making it this time. Sigh.
Were Tara and Steve so egregiously far behind the others that it constituted “slacking”? Isn’t that what the standard is supposed to be, someone who is intentionally not doing their best? I can never remember what the wording is for the regulation on that one. The Red Lantern notwithstanding, it would seem to me that letting people finish the race if they are able to finish is an important thing. After all, they paid big bucks (to the committee that decides this stuff) and put years of effort into preparing for it. I say let them at least finish. I think the only reason the committee cares is they’re all ready to go home and just don’t want to fool with the stragglers. They can give the awards, have the banquet, and call it a day.
It was aspiration pneumonia, essentially inhaling their food. Big dogs just don’t chew.
They were 90 miles behind because of the weather they encountered on the Yukon – Grayling to Kaltag took them forever. Their teams were healthy and they wanted to continue. The Quest allows people to continue if they want to, but tells them they are on their own. Actually the locals at the checkpoints will take care of them and more than once the Red Lantern has arrived after the banquet in both races, but members of the Quest ruling body live in both of the terminal cities used by the race, while the ITC is based in Anchorage.
One year I had to find a local Nome blogger to know the Red Lantern had arrived because everyone on the ITC left Nome as soon as the banquet ended.
It’s taken me a while to get back. Life intervened. lol.
90 miles of a 1000 mile race doesn’t seem so bad. These are people that could have finished, just a shame. Oh well, it’s the Iditarod rules and they can enforce them the way they want. It just seems to disrespect the time, money, effort and love each of the mushers put into this race. It’s what makes the Iditarod great, not the committee. But hey it’s a committee, they have to have rules to enforce.
They charge you $4k to register, require you to run in other races first, and it costs about $30k to actually complete, but the committee makes and enforces the rules. It sucks. You spend a minimum of $34,000 for the chance to get a belt buckle [they don’t don’t even provide the belt].