Woman Wins Rugged Alaska Dog Sled Race

An exhausted Libby Riddles, enjoying a comfortable lead, mushed into Nome today to become the first woman ever to win the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage.

The 28-year-old Riddles drove her team of 13 dogs under the wooden arch on Front Street at 9:20 a.m.

“I can’t even believe it yet,” Riddles said as she stood in the victory chute. “I thought I had the team to do it. I didn’t know if I could keep up my end of it.”

Riddles took the lead in the race three days ago when she pushed her team into a punishing gale that nobody else dared challenge. Her elapsed time of more than 17 days made it the fourth slowest Iditarod on record, and the slowest since 1976.

Her prize money of $50,000 was a record. Asked what she planned to do with it, Riddles said, “Maybe Hawaii. And a box of dog biscuits for each of the dogs.”

Since the race began, 13 of the 61 mushers who left Anchorage have dropped out.

Susan Butcher, who has finished in the top 10 six times, was knocked out of the running early this year when a moose ripped through her team, killing two dogs and severely injuring several others.

Another musher was disqualified after kicking to death a dog that bit him, officials said.

The race trail, winding over two mountain ranges and the Yukon River and through 27 checkpoints, follows the historic Iditarod Trail--a turn-of-the-century mail and freight route that was the commerce link between the influx of miners who crowded the gold-laden shores of Nome and the open-water port of Seward around 1900.