By the numbers: Smallest Iditarod field to take on revised ceremonial start course

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - A field of 33 race teams will take on a shortened course in Saturday’s ceremonial start to the 53rd running of the Iditarod.

The revised course was announced Tuesday by Iditarod officials, who cited a lack of snow for the change. Race officials had already made a major change to the race course, moving the official restart from Willow to Fairbanks — creating a new 1,128-mile course to Nome — and sliding it back one day to Monday, instead of the traditional Sunday restart.

The latest revision to the ceremonial start will look like this: dog teams will still be released from the traditional location at Fourth Avenue and D Street and will turn south on Cordova Street, but after they turn onto 16th Avenue, they will finish at the Sullivan Arena, instead of continuing on to the Chester Creek trail and into the woods at Far North Bicentennial Park.

Rob Urbach, Iditarod CEO, said in a statement Tuesday that personnel with the city’s streets maintenance department and Parks and Recreation Department “worked very hard” to keep the 11-mile distance for the ceremonial start.

“Unfortunately, the warm temperatures and lack of snowfall this season have persisted and it is just not possible this year,” Urbach said.

The revised course will now measure approximately 1.5 miles, according to Urbach.

The first team will go out Saturday at 10 a.m. along Fourth Avenue.

The official restart in Fairbanks will begin Monday at 11 a.m. at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge.

The 53rd edition of the Last Great Race will also see its smallest starting field ever, tied with 2023, which also featured 33 teams.

It’s just one less than the inaugural running in 1973, when 34 showed up to make the trip to Nome.

For comparison, the largest starting field ever was the 2008 Iditarod, when 96 teams showed up to race. That year also saw the most finishers in race history, when 78 made it to Nome.

This year’s race will also see a new winner as defending champion Dallas Seavey is not racing. Seavey — a 37-year-old Talkeetna musher — won the 2024 Iditarod for a record-setting sixth time.

While Seavey is not entered, the next six mushers who finished behind him last year are, forecasting a hotly-contested battle for the 2025 crown. None of the six have won the race before, although all have prior top-10 finishes.

The 2025 edition will also feature a field low on experience, as 16 rookies — defined as any musher who does not have an Iditarod finish on their resume — will be starting, comprising 48% of the current field.

In fact, only two mushers in the field of 33 have won the race; Ryan Redington (the 2023 winner), and three-time champion Mitch Seavey, who last won it in 2017 — which was also the last time a Fairbanks restart was instituted.

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