By the numbers: Iditarod 2025 sees slowest winning time in decades
Longest race in history in terms of mileage sees longest race in terms of time in 30+ years
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - When Nenana’s Jessie Holmes crossed under the brand-new burled arch at 2:55 a.m. Friday on Nome’s Front Street, he accomplished a longtime dream of winning the Last Great Race.
He also won with the slowest time for a winning musher in 32 years. Holmes crossed the finish line Friday in a total time of 10 days, 14 hours, 55 minutes, 44 seconds — much of which can be traced to the course being the longest Iditarod in history at 1,128 miles.
The last time it took a musher that long to reach Nome was 1993, when four-time Iditarod champ Jeff King won in a time of 10 days, 15 hours, 38 minutes, and 15 seconds.
When King won that year, it was then the fastest Iditarod winning time, a record that has since been demolished time and again — the current race record holder for the traditional course is six-time champion Dallas Seavey, who blitzed the 975-mile northern route in 2016 with a winning time of 8 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes, and 16 seconds.
When including all years — regardless of race mileage — the quickest race ever belongs to Seavey in the COVID-affected year of 2021, when he rolled to victory on a shortened course from Deshka Landing to the checkpoint of Iditarod and back in 7 days, 14 hours, 8 minutes, and 57 seconds. That was on an 848-mile course.
Seavey’s father, three-time race winner Mitch Seavey, has also shown a penchant for speed, winning the 2017 race in the second-fastest time in race history — although he too competed on an altered course that started in Fairbanks, much like this year’s race.
Mitch’s winning time in the 2017 Iditarod was 8 days, 3 hours, 40 minutes, and 13 seconds.
In winning this year’s race, Holmes will also be taking home a sizeable payday — $57,200 in winnings, the largest chunk of the $500,000 race purse — as well as $4,500 in cash and another $4,500 in gold nuggets won from various checkpoint awards.
In addition to the money, Holmes was awarded 25 pounds of fresh Bristol Bay salmon.
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