The Redingtons had tried again and again. For 51 years, over several generations. They all wanted to win the Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska, which the American Joe Redington Sr. had launched in 1973. It never worked out for his sons, his grandchildren and also for himself in 71 attempts.

Bernd Steinle

Editor in the section "Germany and the World".

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Until Tuesday noon. Until Ryan Redington, 40 years old, waving wildly and accompanied by the cheers of the fans, ran the last meters on the dense rows of spectators Front Street in Nome in western Alaska next to his dog sled to the finish. After eight days, 21 hours and 12 minutes for the 1600-kilometer route through the interior of Alaska, he had brought his grandfather's trophy back to the Redington family for the first time.

"This victory means everything to me," Redington said after feeding the dogs and embracing God and the world at the finish. "Even as a small child, my big goal was to win the Iditarod. I can't believe it worked out now." A lot of work, patience and support were needed, also from his two brothers, who had previously tried it themselves and from whom he had now repeatedly sought advice in the race. In the end, it was a mammoth 14-hour stage without major breaks from Koyuk to White Mountain, which gave him the decisive advantage on Monday. So he brought a gap of one and a half hours to the second-placed American Peter Kaiser to the finish.

Just over a year ago, a serious training accident had set him back when a snowmobile driver raced into his dog team and injured the animals, some seriously. Redington was only able to raise the cost of the necessary operations through tens of thousands of dollars in donations from fans and supporters. Now Wildfire, one of the injured dogs, was part of his Iditarod winning team.

The Iditarod, the toughest dog sled race in the world, is a quintessentially American mixture of folk festival, pioneer nostalgia, trapper romance and life-threatening adventure sport. It goes back to the "Serum Run" in 1925, when diphtheria raged in the gold mining town of Nome on the far west coast of Alaska and a squadron of mushers brought the rescue drugs to the remote town in five and a half days through storm, ice and snow. Even today, icy cold, snowstorms, exhaustion, fatigue and lack of sleep are dogs and mushers, as the mushers are called. Temperatures sometimes drop below minus 50 degrees. "You have to dance, even if the music is bad," mushers like to say – and in winter in Alaska the music is often bad.

This year, however, it was rather unusually mild temperatures that upset some race plans. Nevertheless, Redington had to survive critical moments shortly before the end, when the visibility in a section notorious for brutal winds was so bad that he could only recognize his first two dogs. "My eyes froze shut, I couldn't see anything, the wind was incredible."

The reward for the suffering was the victory bonus of a good 50,000 dollars as well as various extra prizes on the way, through which another 5000 dollars, gold nuggets worth 1500 dollars and, among other things, 25 pounds of salmon and a hand-sewn beaver fur hat came together. More important to him, however, was the family history. His grandfather, Joe Redington Sr., had come to Alaska in 1948 and built his own dog team. However, the tradition of dog sledding soon threatened to disappear, air traffic and motorized snowmobiles took over their tasks. To keep the tradition alive, Redington organized the first edition of the Iditarod race in 1973. He took part 19 times himself, but never got beyond fifth place. He last finished the race in 1997, after 13 exhausting days – at the age of 80. He died two years later.

All these years, Ryan Redington said, they had kept alive the dream of winning their grandfather's race. It was a "very doggy life", a life determined by dogs, which they had led, seven days a week. Now, finally, everything fell into place. Shortly before the race, Ryan Redington had been eating Chinese and had already had the fortune cookie in his mouth when he remembered that he had not read the prophecy. He looked, and it said: The number 5 will bring you luck in the future. At the Iditarod 2023, Ryan Redington – wore the starting number 5.