ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race ended in a predawn close finish on the snow-covered streets of Nome on Wednesday, with Alaskan Pete Kaiser and his dogs barely holding off defending champion Joar Leifseth Ulsom of Norway.

Pete Kaiser of of Bethel, Alaska crosses the finish line to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska, U.S. March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Diana Haecker/Nome Nugget

Kaiser, 31, reached the finish line just 12 minutes ahead of second-placed Leifseth Ulsom, 32, in one of the closest finishes in Iditarod history. It was Kaiser’s first Iditarod win.

Crowds of cheering fans packed the city of Nome’s Front Street to watch Kaiser and his team sprint under the wooden arch that marks the end of the 1,000-mile (1,609-km) Anchorage-to-Nome run.

His total elapsed time was nine days, 12 hours and 39:06 minutes. It was far from the record time of eight days, 3:40 hours, set two years ago by three-time champion Mitch Seavey.

Kaiser, who became the first Alaska Native musher since 2011 to win, pumped his arms into the air as he crossed the finish line, hugged his wife and small children and then reached into the crowd of well-wishers who had traveled from his southwestern Alaska hometown of Bethel.

He credited the victory to years of preparation, “every little detail coming into play, and having a pinch of luck.”

“I’m very, very fortunate to have the support system I have, the whole community of Bethel and the whole Kuskokwim River and all of western Alaska. It’s extremely humbling and motivates me every day to perform to my best,” he said at the finish line.

The finish line on Nome’s Front Street was lined by big crowds who had braved Kaiser’s early arrival at 3:39 a.m. local time (7:39 a.m. EDT) amid stiff winds and blowing snow.

Warm conditions, with heavy and wet snow, occasional rain and stretches of open water in areas that are usually frozen over at this time of year, hampered the 52 mushers in the race who were slowed to a soggy slog.

For his victory, Kaiser will get $50,000, part of a total $500,000 prize purse, and a new truck.

Until Monday, a different musher had been the frontrunner. French-born Nicolas Petit of Girdwood, Alaska, had a significant lead over his competitors until his dogs stopped on a section of the Bering Sea coastline about 200 miles (322 km) from Nome and refused to go on.

Petit dropped out of the race Monday night, sending his dogs off the trail by snowmobile.

Coming in third and fourth were the Iditarod’s top women, Jessie Royer of Fairbanks and Aliy Zirkle of Two Rivers, Alaska. Paige Drobny of Fairbanks was in seventh place, making this year’s Iditarod likely to be the first with three women in the top 10.

Close finishes of less than an hour apart are unusual in ultra-endurance races like the Iditarod, but they have happened before. The closest was in 1978, when Dick Mackey came in one second ahead of Rick Swenson, with a winning time of 14 days, 18 hours, 52:24 minutes, his lead dog’s nose the first over the finish line, according to Iditarod records.

The Iditarod, run every year since 1973, commemorates a 1925 medical mission that has become part of Alaska legend. At the time, Nome was stricken by a deadly diphtheria outbreak, and the remote Gold Rush town could be reached only by dog sled. Officials used a dog-sled relay to ferry lifesaving medicine to the town.</s>Kaiser is the first musher of Yup’ik descent to win the race

Kaiser, from Bethel, Alaska, is the first musher of Yup’ik descent to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, according a press release from the race.

The nearly 1,000-mile (1,600-km) race took Kaiser nine days, 12 hours, 39 minutes and six seconds, ending when Kaiser reached the finish line in Nome, Alaska, at 3:39 a.m. local time on March 13.

Close behind in second place was 2018 winner Joar Leifseth Ulsom, finishing just 12 minutes behind Kaiser. Ulsom, from Mo i Rana, Norway, had a total race time of nine days, 12 hours, 51 minutes and 22 seconds.

As of 9 a.m. on March 13, rookie Ed Hopkins of 10 Mile is resting with his team at the Koyuk checkpoint. Hopkins is in 28th position and arrived at the checkpoint with 12 dogs.

The top Canadian is Alberta’s Aaron Peck, currently in 21st position, who left the Koyuk checkpoint bound for the Elim checkpoint early in the morning.

Jason Campeau, also from Alberta, is just two spots behind Hopkins in 30th. Campeau is at the Shaktoolik checkpoint.

Whitehorse’s Marcelle Fressineau scratched from the race on March 9 at 12:03 p.m. at the Iditarod checkpoint. A press release said Fressineau made the decision to scratch due to the welfare of her team. She had 11 dogs on the line at the time.

Alaskan Jessie Royer is in third place and currently on the trail from the Safety checkpoint to the finish in Nome.

Four more mushers, including 2017 Yukon Quest winner Matt Hall, are on the trail between the White Mountain checkpoint and the Safety checkpoint. A further four mushers are resting at the White Mountain checkpoint.

A total of 10 mushers have scratched from the field, leaving the number of mushers left racing or finished at 42.</s>A new Iditarod champion has been crowned. Bethel musher Pete Kaiser’s team of eight dogs crossed under the Burled Arch in Nome at 3:39 a.m.

A boisterous crowd of friends and family from the Bethel area traveled to Nome to celebrate Kaiser’s victory. The 31-year-old wins $50,000 and a new truck.

It’s a career highlight for Kaiser, who has raced the Iditarod each year since 2010. On three separate occasions he’s placed as high as fifth, but this is his first win. The team’s run took 9 days, 12 hours and 39 minutes.

Kaiser had to hold off Joar Leifseth Ulsom, the defending champion, who surged on the final run in from White Mountain to trim 30 minutes of Kaiser’s 42-minute edge. The 1,000-mile race came down to 12 minutes. Leifseth Ulsom arrived in Nome at 3:51 a.m.

It was a chaotic scene in the chute as the two dog teams parked side-by-side. Kaiser’s dad fed the team a snack of frozen meat and dragged the sled, quickly moving the team over to give Leifseth Ulsom space. After Leifseth Ulsom was checked in, the party continued with champagne bottles, songs and cheers.

Kaiser is the first competitor from Western Alaska to win the race since Kotzebue musher John Baker’s 2011 victory. He’s the only winner hailing from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, with the one exception of Dick Wilmarth, who came in first during the inaugural Iditarod in 1973 when he lived in Red Devil. Kaiser is the first Iditarod champion with Yupik roots. He hopes his win will help spark an interest in the Delta and beyond.

“Not just Yupik people but all of the rural Native people from Western Alaska, or anywhere in the state, for that matter. It really doesn’t matter,” Kaiser said. “Anybody who can get a kick out of this, that’s awesome.”

Kaiser was raised around sled dogs in Bethel. His father raced dogs in local races before he was born. As a child, he got interested in dogs and began training with his family. By the time he was a senior in high school, he was winning local races like the Akiak Dash.

Kaiser’s racing style has tended to be conservative during the early parts of the race, in which he banks extra rest and ensures that his team will have speed when the opportunities arise. It was a variation of that style that positioned Kaiser for the victory in 2019.

“I generally have kind of an idea of what I’m gonna do, but it’s not set in stone,” Kaiser said. “A run can take five hours on a good trail and eight hours on a bad trail, just like this race played out. I mean, all these runs turned out to be two or three hours longer than they could have been on a long trail, so you gotta be able to adjust your race accordingly, I feel. If you just have something put pen to paper what you’re gonna do, no matter what, I don’t think it’s gonna work out so well.”

Kaiser raced a bit behind the leaders for the early and midsection of the race, preparing for the right time to show off his team’s speed. It was on the approach to the coast and the final few hundred miles of trail that he made his mark. Kaiser waited until Kaltag to take his mandatory eight-hour rest on the Yukon River. It was on that last push up the Yukon that his team hit a critical stride.

“We just got some trail that the team really likes, and we didn’t see much of that this race,” Kaiser said. “My team really likes hard, fast trails where they can go fast, and that was probably the best type of trail for that kind of race. So when they got on that (trail), they really wanted to roar. And actually (I) held ‘em back for most of that run.”

With fresh rest in his dogs, he was still three hours behind the race leader Nicolas Petit, but running fast at the right time.

He matched Petit for the fastest run time to Shaktoolik, and after that checkpoint is when the race broke open. Petit’s dogs stalled on the ice between Shaktoolik and Koyuk, costing Petit his race, but clearing the way for Kaiser and Leifseth Ulsom to battle for the win. Kaiser said as he passed Petit going up the coast he knew things weren’t going well for his competitor.

“I had an idea when I got there that something was going on,” Kaiser said. “I said, ‘Hi,’ and he said, “Hi,’ and that was it.”

On the windy push up to Koyuk, Kaiser again led the field. He gained an hour on Leifseth Ulsom into Koyuk. From there, Kaiser needed to maintain an edge on the athletic Leifseth Ulsom, which over the next few runs resulted in the first title for the Bethel musher.

As Kaiser rested after his win, Jessie Royer mushed in and out of Safety, the last checkpoint before Nome, running in third place. In fourth, Aliy Zirkle was between White Mountain at the time.

And if Royer, Zirkle and Fairbanks musher Paige Drobny — sitting in seventh in White Mountain — maintain their positions, it’ll be the first time ever that three women have finished in the top 10. It’ll also be an enormous leap up the standings for Drobny, who, in four previous Iditarod finishes has never placed higher than 25th.</s>Map of Sebring International Raceway for 2019 12 Hours of Sebring</s>Kaiser Permanente plans to cut approximately 60 full-time gardening positions at 16 Kaiser facilities across Northern California this spring, according to a trade union.

Beginning in mid-May, the layoffs would include 13 positions at Kaiser medical centers in the North Bay, according to SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, which in a March 11 press release said it was informed of the action. The group said local cuts would be as follows: San Rafael (two jobs), Santa Rosa (three jobs), Vacaville (two jobs) and Vallejo (six jobs).

“Under the plan, the gardeners would lose their jobs as soon as May 11 and an outside company would oversee an entirely new workforce that is paid less and receives fewer benefits than current Kaiser employees," the union said in the announcement. "Nearly 100 federal, state and local elected officials in California have sent letters to Kaiser opposing the corporation’s outsourcing plans.”

Kaiser in a March 11 statement said it currently uses an outside landscaping firm at a half-dozen of its Northern California medical centers.

“The recent decision was made to expand the use of this outside service to the remainder of our campuses,” John Nelson, vice president of communications, Kaiser Permanente, said in the statement. “As a result of a change in business practice with the new landscaping service, we will be working with our affected internal landscaping staff to support training and transition to other jobs within Kaiser Permanente per our existing redeployment agreement with SEIU-UHW.”

In cases where it isn’t feasible to reassign affected workers, Kaiser will “provide them up to one year of salary and benefits,” Nelson said.

SEIU-UHW’s press release included an attachment of a March 8 notification letter from Kaiser Permanente’s labor division, to the regional director of the union’s Kaiser division. The letter also included a request between the two entities for meetings this week to discuss the transition of Kaiser’s impacted employees and plans to notify them later this month.

Nelson said Kaiser has added more than 8,000 employees represented by the union since 2015. SEIU-UHW reports it represents 95,000 members in the western United States.</s>Queens freshman Alex Kunert took down a meet and NCAA Division II Record in the 1000 free that had stood since 2009 when Mitch Snyder of Drury went 8:57.06. Kunert was unchallenged from start to finish, setting his own pace and ending up winning by over 6 seconds.

Kunert swims everything from the 50 through the 1000 and while he professes to prefer the 100 to the 1000, he has been continually improving at the distance since beginning his freshman year at Queens last fall. Kunert recorded his first official 1000 in January at the Duke-Queens-William & Mary double dual meet. There, he went 9:13.48 to win the event. His next 1000 was at Bluegrass Mountain Conference Championships a month later. Kunert broke the meet record going 8:58.46. His two halves at BMCs were 4:25.54 / 4:32.74. At NCAAs, he took it out 3.28 seconds faster and came home 1.76 seconds slower, 4:22.26 / 4:34.50.
Peter Kaiser wins the 2019, 1000-mile Iditarod, arriving in Nome in 9 days, 12 hours and 39 minutes.