King keeps Iditarod lead

UNALAKLEET, Alaska – Defending champion Jeff King kept the lead Sunday in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, with three other teams close behind entering the final leg of the longest sled dog race in the world.

More than 100 people, many of them bundled in bulky parkas with large fur ruffs, stood out in below-zero weather with icy wind whipping the coastal village of Unalakleet to await the first musher into the checkpoint 261 miles from the finish line in Nome.

King, a four-time winner, arrived at 3:35 p.m., followed less than an hour later by Lance Mackey of Fairbanks, who is trying to prove that a musher can win the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and the 1,100-mile Iditarod in the same year.

Four-time winner Martin Buser was third into Unalakleet just 2 minutes later. He was followed by Paul Gebhardt of Kasilof, the third-place finisher last year.