List of winners of the legendary Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from the beginning, including winning times and brief notes about the winners.
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race takes place each year in March. The race runs 1,049 miles from Anchorage and Nome, Alaska. Begun in 1973, the race commemorates a successful emergency mission to get diptheria vaccine to Nome in 1925 during an epidemic. The drama of racing through the frozen Arctic landscape over many days has captured the imagination of people around the world.
Winners of the race have been as follows:
Year Musher Home Time (DD:HH:MM)
1973 Dick Wilmarth Red Devil, AK 20:00:50
1974 Carl Huntington Galena, AK 20:15:02
1975 Emmitt Peters Ruby, AK 14:14:45
1976 Gerald Riley Nenana, AK 18:22:58
1977 Rick Swenson Manley, AK 16:16:27
1978 Dick Mackey Wasilla, AK 14:18:52
1979 Rick Swenson Manley, AK 15:10:38
1980 Joe May Trapper Creek, AK 14:07:12
1981 Rick Swenson Manley, AK 12:08:45
1982 Rick Swenson Manley, AK 16:04:40
1983 Rick Mackey Wasilla, AK 12:14:11
1984 Dean Osmar Clam Gulch, AK 12:15:07
1985 Libby Riddles Teller, AK 18:00:20
1986 Susan Butcher Manley, AK 11:15:06
1987 Susan Butcher Manley, AK 11:02:05
1988 Susan Butcher Manley, AK 11:11:42
1989 Joe Runyan Nenana, AK 11:05:25
1990 Susan Butcher Manley, AK 11:01:53
1991 Rick Swenson Manley, AK 12:16:35
1992 Martin Buser Big Lake, AK 10:19:17
1993 Jeff King Denali, AK 10:15:38
1994 Martin Buser Big Lake, AK 10:13:03
1995 Doug Swingley Simms, MT 9:02:42
1996 Jeff King Denali, AK 9:05:43
1997 Martin Buser Big Lake, AK 9:08:31
1998 Jeff King Denali, AK 9:05:52
1999 Doug Swingley Simms, MT 9:14:31
2000 Doug Swingley Simms, MT 9:00:58
It was 13 years into race before a woman, Libby Riddles, won in 1985, starting a four-year run of female winners. Although they have been very close to winning in most years since, no woman has won since 1990.
Rick Swenson is the only five-time winner, followed by Susan Butcher with four wins and Doug Swingley, Martin Buser, and Jeff King with three each. Susan Butcher is the only person to win three consecutive races. Swingley is the only non-Alaskan to win the race, and at forty-six years old in 2000, he is also the oldest musher to win. Dick Mackey (1978) is the father of Rick Mackey (1983); they are the only father-son combination to win the race.
Over the years, the winning time has decreased from almost three weeks on the trail (20 days) to a little over one week (9 days), even though the race course is essentially the same. Winning times vary between years with the vagaries of the weather. Storms in 1985 held up winner Libby Riddles six days longer than the previous year's winning time.
The closest finish came in 1978, when Dick Mackey beat out Rick Swenson by one second. Mackey's lead dog was one second ahead of Swenson's, but Swenson's sled actually crossed the finish line ahead of Mackey's. Race officials decided that it was sled dog race, so the first dog over the line should determine the winner.
