Mackey and King make final push in Iditarod

Norwegian musher Sigrid Ekran drives her dog team into the Bering Sea village of Unalakleet, Alaska, during the Iditarod sled-dog race on Monday. PHOTO: AP

Lance Mackey and four-time champion Jeff King appeared to have narrowed the field to a two-man competition in the trans-Alaska Iditarod sled-dog race on Monday, heading the field as the event reached its final leg.

With the winner expected to cross the finish line late yesterday or early this morning, Mackey, 37, and King, 51, were relatively running side-by-side as they worked their teams up the icy Bering Sea coast to Nome.

"It's a two-way race. Right now it looks like either Jeff or Lance, but a lot of things can happen," said Dale Myers, a longtime volunteer who was hanging up Iditarod sponsor banners along the snow-packed chute leading to the finish line under the wooden arch erected this week on Front Street.

Mackey the first musher into the Koyuk checkpoint, clocking in at 1:19pm on Monday, followed eight minutes later by King. The two remained for several hours in Koyuk, a village about 275km from the 1,770km race's end in Nome, before Mackey headed out at 5:41pm, trailed by King 16 minutes later.

Also en route to Koyuk from Shaktoolik were Alaskans Ramey Smyth, Ken Anderson and Martin Buser, and Canadian Hans Gatt of Whitehorse, Yukon.

A victory for King would tie him with Rick Swenson, the Iditarod's only five-time winner.

But Mackey would also make history with a second Iditarod win. Last year he became the first musher to record consecutive wins in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and the Iditarod. Mackey also won the Yukon Quest last month and is trying to repeat last year's double.