{"id":664299,"date":"2026-03-18T11:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T11:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/664299\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T11:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T11:29:13","slug":"ex-reality-tv-star-jessie-holmes-wins-alaskas-iditarod-sled-dog-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/664299\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-reality TV star Jessie Holmes wins Alaska’s Iditarod sled dog race"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOME, Alaska (AP) \u2014 Former reality TV star Jessie Holmes cruised to a repeat victory<\/a> in the Iditarod, the roughly 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) sled dog race in Alaska.<\/p>\n

Holmes guided his dog team across the finish line Tuesday night in the old Gold Rush town of Nome, a Bering Sea coastal community. He pumped both fists in the air as the crowd cheered for him and his team of 12 dogs.<\/p>\n

After finishing, the dogs got steaks and Holmes answered some questions accompanied by his lead dogs, Polar and Zeus. <\/p>\n

\u201cZeus led every single run except one. I just wanted to let someone else have some fun. And Polar deserves it more than anybody,\u201d he said. \u201cHe leads by example.\u201d<\/p>\n

The race started March 8 in Willow, a day after the ceremonial start<\/a> was held in Anchorage. The course took dog teams and their mushers over two mountain ranges, along the frozen Yukon River and across the unpredictable Bering Sea ice.<\/p>\n

Holmes, a former cast member on the National Geographic reality show \u201cLife Below Zero,\u201d is the third competitor in the 54-year history of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race to repeat the year after winning for the first time. The others were Susan Butcher in 1986-1987 and Lance Mackey in 2007-2008. Both went on to win four titles.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Musher<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Holmes told The Associated Press before the Iditarod that this year\u2019s race was the most important of his career<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s hard to put that on yourself because you got to live with that pressure every day,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cAnd if I do not make it, it is going to absolutely crush me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He will pocket about $80,000 for this year\u2019s win, up from the $57,000-plus he took home last year. This year\u2019s purse was boosted by financial support from Norwegian billionaire Kjell Rokke, who participated in a newly created, noncompetitive amateur category. Rokke reached Nome on Monday, under rules that allowed him to have outside support from a former Iditarod champ, flexible rest periods and to swap out dogs. <\/p>\n

Holmes\u2019 first Iditarod was in 2018. His seventh place finish earned him rookie of the year honors. He has now raced in the Iditarod nine times, earning seven top 10 finishes. He\u2019s been in the top five the last five races.<\/p>\n

He appeared for eight years on \u201cLife Below Zero,\u201d which chronicled the hardships of people living in rural Alaska.<\/p>\n

Holmes used the money he earned from the show to buy better dogs and equipment, and also was able to purchase raw land near Denali National Park and Preserve. A carpenter by trade, he\u2019s carved his homestead in the wilderness, where his closest neighbor is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) away.<\/p>\n

Rokke, who now lives in Switzerland, provided $100,000 in additional prize money and $170,000 to Alaska Native villages that serve as checkpoints. Another musher in the noncompetitive \u201cexpedition\u201d class, Canadian entrepreneur Steve Curtis, pledged $50,000 to help youth sports programs in the villages. Curtis did not finish the race.<\/p>\n

The race\u2019s biggest critic, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has claimed that more than 150 dogs have died in the history of the Iditarod. It urged Rokke to spend his money to help dogs rather than put them through \u201chazards and misery.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Iditarod has never provided its count of dogs who have died on the race.<\/p>\n

One dog has died in this year\u2019s race, a 4-year-old female named Charly on musher Mille Porsild\u2019s team, the Iditarod said in a statement Tuesday. A necropsy will be conducted.<\/p>\n

Thirty-four competitive mushers started, matching the inaugural 1973 race for the second fewest in race history. The retirements of many longtime mushers and the high cost of supplies<\/a>, such as dog food, have kept the fields small this decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NOME, Alaska (AP) \u2014 Former reality TV star Jessie Holmes cruised to a repeat victory in the Iditarod,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":664300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[13671,934,171,51344,57,272209,272218,272208,62,272215,272217,173,61,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-664299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ak-state-wire","tag-alaska","tag-entertainment","tag-general-domestic-news","tag-general-news","tag-jessie-holmes","tag-lance-mackey","tag-sled-dog-racing","tag-sports","tag-steve-curtis","tag-susan-butcher","tag-tv","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116249950005333562","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}