Jessie Holmes repeats as Iditarod champion

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Jessie Holmes is back again as Iditarod champion.

The field of mushers and the elements threw everything at Holmes, but he never flinched, crossing under the burled arch at 9:32 p.m. Tuesday to claim his second consecutive Iditarod victory in a total time of 9 days, 7 hours, 32 minutes, and 51 seconds.

Holmes led the race ever since he passed Cantwell veteran Paige Drobny on the trail between Cripple and Ruby, where he claimed the “First to the Yukon” prize, a gourmet five-course meal.

The Brushkana veteran maintained a strong presence at the front of the field throughout the roughly 1,000-mile endurance race that was inspired by the vaunted “Serum Run” of 1925.

Last year, Holmes emerged victorious in the wee hours of the night to claim his first Iditarod title in a finishing time of 10 days, 14 hours, 55 minutes, 44 seconds.

That was on a revised course that started in Fairbanks, due to bad snow conditions.

This year, he completed the full — true — course that winds its way from Willow to Nome.

The 2026 champ chats with Alaska’s News Source at the finish line about his victory:

With the victory, Holmes joins a short list of mushers who repeated as champion one year after winning their first — Susan Butcher and Lance Mackey are the only other ones to accomplish that feat.

As a regular on the reality TV show “Life Below Zero” — which follows subsistence hunters in rural Alaska — Holmes has now put himself into the record books of multi-time Iditarod champions.

Jessie Holmes Iditarod history

He’s now finished in the top 10 seven times out of nine attempts, including top-5 finishes in each of the past five years.

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