The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is about to see its first repeat champion in a decade.
Defending champ Jessie Holmes and a team of 12 sled dogs raced out of White Mountain in first place at 11:26 a.m. Tuesday, setting up Team Can’t Stop for its second Iditarod win.
The 1,000 mile race from Willow to Nome hasn’t seen repeat championships since Dallas Seavey did it three years in a row, from 2014 to 2016. Only five mushers have ever won consecutively.
Holmes had a nearly four-hour lead on his closest competitor, veteran Travis Beals of Seward, for the final 77 miles from White Mountain to the Burled Arch, the Iditarod’s finish line in Nome. All teams are required to take an eight-hour rest in White Mountain before that last big push.
During his layover in White Mountain, Holmes told Iditarod Insider that his run from the previous checkpoint of Golovin was one of the best of his life, including memorable country and people.
“I want to make sure I soak in every second of this and see it for what it is,” Holmes said. “It's not about that finish line, it's not about that victory, that paycheck, that trophy, it's about every mile that I got to spend with this incredible dog team.”
Holmes received a trophy and a check for $2,500 for being first to White Mountain, along with many other prizes he’s won in the race, which his team has led for much of the way since starting in Willow on March 8.
At one point, it looked like Holmes' friend and Denali Highway neighbor Paige Drobny would challenge him, but other frontrunners leapfrogged her while she took a six-hour rest in Shaktoolik.
The 44-year-old Holmes told Insider he feels like he made the right moves and was not thinking about the competition.
“I feel like the thing that I'm proud about this race is that I always had the confidence to trust myself, trust my dogs, not really getting the game of like, ‘Oh, somebody's coming up behind me,’” he said. “It's like, ‘Come up and try,’ has kind of been my attitude.”
Windstorms have knocked top teams out of the race in the past, but that appears unlikely in 2026 with wind forecasted to only be 10 mph in Nome.
Beals can leave as early as 3:07 p.m. Tuesday. Beals and his dogs surged in the coastal stretches of the race, as the competitors raced across Norton Sound sea ice, passing four teams from Saturday to Monday. Beals has finished sixth in the Iditarod each of the last two years. He was named the Most Improved Musher in 2015, when he finished 11th.
As of noon Tuesday, only one musher, Jaye Foucher of New Hampshire, had scratched from the race.
A four-year-old dog on veteran Millie Porsild’s team died outside the village checkpoint of Elim, according to a statement Tuesday from race officials.
Non-competitive Expedition Class mushers Thomas Waerner and Steve Curtis ended their runs Sunday in Unalakleet and McGrath, respectively. Norwegian billionaire Kjell Røkke, the third Expedition musher, arrived in Nome Monday afternoon.
Based on previous race times, it can take mushers anywhere from nine to twelve hours to reach the finish line from White Mountain.
A winner is expected in Nome late Tuesday.
