Click on below to watch the Iditarod 2016 live!
Iditarod Live
By: Zoe & Risa
The Iditarod race is one of the greatest races in the world. It is a race from Anchorage, Alaska to Nome, Alaska. People from all over the world can participate. Some requirements are, your dogs have to know the commands, and you have to have at least 12 dogs to start the race, and you have to have at least 5 dogs to finish. The Iditarod started when there were kids in Nome with diphtheria.The medicine they needed was in Anchorage which was 1,000 miles away and they couldn’t fly planes in such harsh weather. One person brought up that they could use dog sleds,and they thought it was a pretty good idea,so they did it. There would be one person at each stop,and when the person in front of them reached that stop,they would take off. One musher was the second to last,but when he got to the next stop,the musher at that checkpoint was not there. So that musher had to go all the way to Nome. While they were going, they lost the serum in the snow, so the musher of the dog team had to take off his gloves and mittens so he didn’t have any protection for his hands, and he found the serum! Then, the lead dog got hurt so Balto had to take his place. He raced across the cold snow and finally reached Nome. They gave the serum to the doctor and he saved the children. Balto died later when he was 17 years old. Now there is a statue of him in New York City.
There are ways you can get disqualified in the Iditarod. Some ways are, If you have any connection with outsiders you are disqualified, but you can have a GPS. Another way to get disqualified is to litter, which means if you leave your straw for the dogs to sit on behind, you will get disqualified. I hope you learned a lot about the Iditarod, one of the greatest races in the world!