FAIRBANKS — A 25-year-old Alaska man on Monday won the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Matt Hall of Two Rivers crossed the finish line in downtown Fairbanks just after noon. It’s Hall’s first win in four tries in the race that goes between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon, where the Yukon Quest started Feb. 4.
He finished fourth in the Yukon Quest last year after scratching in 2015. He was third in 2014.
Hall took command of the race when then-leader Brent Sass had problems with his team. Sass scratched in Central, which gave Hall a lead of a couple hours over his nearest competitor.
The world’s most famous sled dog race, the Iditarod, will have its ceremonial start in Anchorage on March 4. Poor snow conditions in the Alaska Range have forced the official start to Fairbanks on March 6. The winner of the nearly thousand-mile race is expected in Nome about nine days later.
Matt Hall poses with his lead dogs after winning the 2017 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race on Tuesday in Fairbanks. (Eric Engman | Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)
