Two of This Year’s Iditarod Racers Have Montana Ties
I like to fancy myself as a pretty big sports guy. I played sports growing up and I've watched sports all my life. But if I had to pick one of the yearly events that I really know nothing about - it would be the Iditarod. My knowledge of dogsled racing is a zero. I think the only thing I feel like I know is that there's a restriction on how much you can run the dogs - but I'm not even sure if that's a real rule or something I just thought of that I think exists.
If you're any sort of fan of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race you probably know that it kicks off over the weekend. And regardless of how much you're into it - it's pretty cool to see that a couple of the participants are from Montana.
One racer is from Butte and will be the first person from there to compete in the event. The other one has quite a bit of experience as this will be her 19th time competing. An NBC MONTANA article says Seeley Lake's Jessie Royer has been a top ten finisher eight times before - that's pretty awesome! She even finished 3rd last year. Maybe this is the year she can bring home the trophy, or medal, or bag of cash.....like I said, I don't know much about the sport so I'm not sure what the winner gets. But I would imagine there's some fine prize to celebrate their multi-day trek.
It seems like if there was an event that wouldn't be affected much by the pandemic - a dogsled race would be it. You're already outdoors and you don't have a large group of people making up a team. But COVID did find a way to affect things as they had to cancel the ceremonies that start the race. It seems nothing can avoid the reach of COVID entirely.
Good luck Montana participants - bring home the gold! Again, probably not gold, I have no idea what the winner gets but here's to hoping for a good showing from both racers.
LOOK: The least obedient dog breeds