By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The top woman competing in Alaska’s Iditarod sled dog race, Aliy Zirkle, has been forced out of the contest after suffering a concussion and other injuries on the trail two days into the event, organizers said on Tuesday.
No details of the mishap or the extent of her injuries were immediately available. But Zirkle, a fan favorite, was evacuated from the trail to an Anchorage hospital for medical treatment, organizers said. She has since been released.
Zirkle, of Two Rivers, Alaska, was considered the leading female contender in this year’s 49th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. She has finished in second place three years in a row – in 2012, 2013 and 2014 – and had announced that she planned to retire after this year’s contest.
Zirkle, now in her early 50s, was born in New Hampshire and moved to Alaska at age 20 and began mushing. She went on to become the first woman ever to win another major sled dog marathon, the 1,000-mile (1,610-km) Yukon Quest.
This year’s Iditarod got under way on Sunday with 46 mushers and their teams of huskies dashing off into the Alaska wilderness on a course drastically rerouted, and shortened, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Rather than racing, as usual, from Anchorage to Nome, the gold-rush town on the Bering Sea coast, the race is being run along an out-and-back trail to and from a remote spot along the Deshka River in Willow, about 75 miles (120 km) north of Anchorage.
The total distance is about 860 miles (1,380 km), roughly 100 miles (160 km) shorter than the traditional route to Nome.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; Editing by Steve Gorman and Jonathan Oatis)
