Skrevet av: Ole Martin Jøraholmen transl. Hans Ole Sandring
Dato: 14.03.2012 18:29
When the first teams of dogs arrived Iditarod yesterday evening, Sigrid Ekran from Sparbu competed for a top ten placement. She was number 10 for a long time in the trail, but she dropped one placement on the last leg. Trail manager on FL-1000, Don Lyrek, has raced Iditarod and admires Ekran`s performance:
That Sigrid competed to place in the top ten, is impressive. Seldom have mushers been so competent and experienced as this year, he says and thinks Ekran`s placement in the summary could have qualified as a victory five years ago. – The competition is very tough this year so when Sigrid kept up the pace with the rest of the top mushers is very impressive. Lyrek has been judging Iditarod for many years and he knows what he talks about. When Ekran`s team of dogs made it to Nome today, the woman from Sparbu had travelled more than 1800 kilometers through the inhospitable wilderness of Alaska- for the third time.
Sigrid Ekran- who became a world champion in long distance driving last year- participated in Iditarod already in 2007. A flying start gave her title “Rookie of the year”, in addition she was awarded as the best female musher. She repeated the trip from Anchorage to Nome as a veteran the next year, and improved her own personal leg time on this distance.
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No doubt that Sigrid works well with the dogs, and this year finished on elleventh place (The picture is from last years Finnmarksløp)
Photo: Geir Stian Altmann Larsen
With nine dogs left on the final legs, Ekran raced better than in her debut year and 2008. She climbed higher and higher on the ranking list. Don Lyrek is very satisfied with Sigrid`s progress, and remembers when he competed in Iditarod. Lyrek became well known when he crossed the finish line in Nome with all his dogs, which is unusual today. To exemplify, this year’s winner Dallas Seavey, finished the race with nine dogs. That is seven dogs less than the number he started off with lifting the snow anchor in Anchorage.
We congratulate the 25 –years old Dallas Seavey as the youngest musher winning Iditarod through all times, and not to forget a smiling Sigrid Ekran with impressive performance in the annual Iditarod. Ekran is simply a magnificent ambassador for the sledge dog sport in Norway.