Four-time champ King takes Iditarod lead
Leaves checkpoint minute before Zirkle
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Four-time champion Jeff King took a razor-thin lead in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Sunday, trading places with his closest rival by departing a checkpoint a minute earlier on Alaska’s wind-scoured western coast.
Aliy Zirkle led hours before when she arrived at the Norton Bay village of Koyuk a minute ahead of King earlier Sunday.
King rested his 12-dog team at the checkpoint for 3 hours and 42 minutes, while Zirkle and her 11 dogs took a break for 3 hours and 44 minutes. King departed Koyuk at 5:50 p.m. Sunday, and Zirkle got back on the trail at 5:51 p.m.
They are on a 48-mile dash to the next checkpoint of Elim on Golovin Bay, 123 miles from the finish line in Nome.
King last won in 2006 and is trying to be only the second musher to win five races.
Zirkle has come in second place the last two years in the nearly 1,000-mile race. She is seeking to become only the third woman to win the race and the first woman since the late Susan Butcher in 1990.
Zirkle arrived at Koyuk at 2:07 p.m. Sunday after a 50-mile run from the previous checkpoint at Shaktoolik. King arrived close behind at 2:08 p.m.
Other front-runners Sunday were four-time champion Martin Buser, who arrived in Koyuk in third place at 4:20 p.m. Sunday, followed 13 minutes later by 2012 Iditarod champion Dallas Seavey. Veteran musher Sonny Lindner arrived in fifth place at 4:47 p.m., followed by defending champion Mitch Seavey, father of Dallas Seavey, at 5:23 p.m.
Veteran Aaron Burmeister had been sixth out of Shaktoolik but arrived in Koyuk at 5:58 p.m., after Mitch Seavey.
The racers, who have two more checkpoints after Elim and before Nome, are expected to begin arriving in Nome no later than Tuesday.
Temperatures in Nome hovered slightly above zero Sunday, which brought clear conditions and brilliant sunshine. Snowfall has been light this winter in the frontier town of nearly 3,700, so the city has been stockpiling snow, which was being trucked to Front Street for the final stretch to the finish line.