Update: This story was updated to include Joar Leifseth Ulsom’s statement that he didn’t dope his dogs or any others.
Just when you think things can’t get much worse for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race with its first publicly revealed doping case, suggestions of sabotage and charges of dog kennel theft, well….
Yes, things are getting worse.
Iditarod doping became the talk of ESPN today. ESPN, for those who don’t watch television, is one of the country’s top – if not the top – sports-only network. More than 90 million U.S. cable viewers have the network wired into their TVs.
Iditarod organizers would kill to have the network actually cover the 1,000-mile Last Great Race from Willow to Nome. Instead, they got pretty much the opposite.
The Iditarod race and its simmering doping controversy popped up this morning as one of the “underreported stories of the week” on “Outside the Lines,” a show now drawing as many viewers as ESPSN’s “NFL Live,” according to ratings.
The Iditarod takeaway from the show?
“There’s no honor among mushers.”
“What’s going on?”
Inviting accusations
And there you have it.
Clearly, the national media skipped right past the adversary “of the race itself” speculation and grabbed onto “an adversary of that musher,” and then narrowed the field to musher-on-musher sabotage.
This is close to “fake news.” It is also predictable given the way the news has come to work.
As to who the potential adversaries “of that musher” might be, if such enemies exist, it’s hard to even guess without knowing which team among the top-20 tested positive for tramadol, a synthetic opioid.
Iditarod continues to refuse to release the name. It’s “confidential,” ESPN reported.
A bunch of teams, however, would appear largely adversary free.
It’s hard, if not impossible, to find anyone who has an unkind word to say about Ramey Smyth from Willow, the 12th place finisher who some have called too nice to win, or three-time runner up Aliy Zirkle from Two Rivers, who finished eighth this year, or 56-year-old Ralph Johannessen from Norway, the 16th place finisher who hasn’t really been around the Iditarod long enough for anyone to develop any resentments.
There might be some less than cuddly feelings toward those like Jeff King from Denali, who some think just a little too cocky, but the resentments are relatively minor. Not to mention that a reasonable person has to wonder what the point would be in the aging King doping his dogs or someone else sabotaging them on the way to an 11th place finish.
The same might be said for any team outside the top-10, maybe even the top-5. The Iditarod prize money falls of fast from the $71,250 Seavey collected for winning the race to the $27,503 King pocketed.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say someone in the King camp tried to sabotage someone in front of their musher to get “Musher X” disqualified so King could move up in the standings. King’s jump to 10th would net him only $1,995.
That’s not a very big incentive for the risky undertaking of sabotage.
On top of which, the Iditarod profit isn’t in the purse. It’s in the winning and the marketing value of being an Iditarod champ – see “Husky Homestead, a Denali Destination Where Dogs Are King” as in Jeff King, four-time Iditarod champ or “Seavey’s Iditarod Racing, Tours – Mitch Seavey 2017 Iditarod Champion.”
Obvious target
So if someone was going to sabotage a musher in this race, it would most likely be Seavey, who had a comfortable lead of more than an hour and a half at White Mountain, the penultimate checkpoint, and a strong team with 12 dogs remaining.
Mushers who reach White Mountain with a good speed into the checkpoint, which Seavey had; a big number of dogs, which Seavey had; and a lead of over an hour, which Seavey had; win the Iditarod.
That’s just the way it works.
So Seavey was a lock. The only way to stop him would have been sabotage, but he’s on record as saying the positive doping test wasn’t his team. If you believe him, and there’s no reason not to, count his team out as the one with doped dogs.
And it doesn’t make any sense for the winner to sabotage a team behind. So consider Seavey the only one in the clear at the moment.
Behind him, maybe somebody could make an argument for sabotage to some other team to make more money, but it’s not a particularly strong argument. If Nic Petit of Girdwood sabotaged second-place finisher Dallas Seavey from Willow, Mitch’s son and a four-time champ, Petit could have earned nearly $5,000 more by moving up in the standings.
Only 13 minutes behind the younger Seavey in White Mountain, Petit also had an incentive to dope his own dogs. A better rest in White Mountain where a mandatory 8-hour stop is required might have given them a chance to catch Dallas.
Petit is easily reached in Girdwood, a ski community just south of Alaska’s largest city. Asked first if he was the doper, he said “f— no.” Asked if he had sabotaged anyone else’s team, he said “f— no.”
And he expressed faith in his fellow competitors.
“I don’t think a competitor would have done anything like that,” he added.
The incentive for doping or sabotage late in the Iditarod race would appear low given that there just isn’t that much money involved at that point. Nobody stands to gain much either in cash or prestige from finishing fifth instead of sixth or 11th instead of 12th.
Fourth-place finisher Joar Leifseth Ulsom from Norway stood to make $5,628 by moving up from fourth to third. He messaged on Facebook that the doped dogs were not his,and “and I certainly didn’t dope any (other) dogs.”
Montana’s Jessie Royer would have made only $4,134 by moving from fifth to fourth. She is back home in Montana guiding elk hunters, but her mom returned a call. Mom couldn’t see her daughter sabotaging anyone else’s team, and there is no way Royer’s team was the one doped, she said.
The family hadn’t even heard about the Alaska doping case until it hit national news yesterday, mom said.
Wade Marrs from Willow is in the sweet spot in the strange Iditarod purse structure. A jump from six to fifth would have netted him $6,910. He has not responded to a phone message.
Would an Iditarod musher, or an Iditarod musher’s kennel take the risks of sabotaging another musher for a payout of $7,000 or less, probably far less? That’s the question ESPN has posed with its observation of “no honor among mushers.”
Below sixth place, the differences between finishing positions shrink to a matter of a few thousand dollars to a few hundred dollars. The purse breakdown is here: http://iditarod.com/race/2017/
There was a time when honor among mushers was a given on the Iditarod Trail. There was a day when five-time champ Rick Swenson from Central Alaska was a man sometimes loathed for his arrogance, not to mention his winning ways.
But even competitors who hated Swenson begrudgingly admitted that if they got into trouble anywhere along the trail, Swenson was the guy they’d most want to show up to help out.
There was that kind of respect. It appears now to have faded badly.
Today? Well the charges filed against Jason Mackey accusing him of stealing another musher’s dog kennels do make one wonder.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the Jason Mackey theft. He allegedly stole dog kennels.
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This is not the first time that that ITC has turned a blind eye to doping of dogs by mushers…..years ago many folks knew Susan Butcher was giving her dogs pharmaceuticals, yet no one would intervene. After she died the urine testing was implemented but it was always only at the “vet check” and potentially random during the race, but never pre-season testing or testing during the fall and winter training months.
Fact is that one Iditarod chief veterinarian told mushers how to avoid having their doped-up dogs test positive for drugs.
I can say with some knowledge that there was urine testing done before Susan Butcher died as the collecting of urine from several of my male dogs took place in McGrath during 1982 race.
As far as pre-season testing, I can’t imagine any such thing being done as its only some of these prescription-type drugs are prohibited during the race. Getting into whether/not any of these drugs are used outside of the race is getting pretty far afield IMO.
Bill,
I should have said there was no significant “Drug Testing Policy” at the ITC until Susan Butcher was out of the lineup…
As for how it is currently, a musher could give their team Anabolic Steroids for 11 months out of the year and go undetected during the week of the race.
Would you say that should be allowed under a comprehensive “Anti-Doping” program?
If the ITC retains the same testing procedures, it appears like a complete waste of time and money since no offenders will be punished for their actions.
Steve, what is the purpose for giving anabolic steriods? And how could a testing program outside of the race work? Outside of the race there is no accountability for dogs in the race so it seems to me that an entire kennel would have to be tested to get at the 15 or so dogs that actually race. As I see it, those anabolic steroids would most likely go undetected in other athletes (human) under similar circumstances-how is this a problem then? I guess it all comes down to what are those steroids used for-obviously keeping dogs on them for 11 months is not a performance thing but something else.
The Iditarod has become one big bore. We know that either Mitch or Dallas will win. Boring. For years, there have been suspicions that some dogs were doped but the Iditarod denied it was happening.
But now they give us dog-doping Musher X. We wonder who this person is. Will more dogs be doped next year? We wonder. We pay attention. But of this we can be sure: There will be no more reported doping in subsequent years. Ah, hah, the new rule (which asks mushers to prove a negative and take disputed polygraph tests) has done its magic. The ever vigilant Iditarod (which has actually allowed sick and injured dogs to race) protects dogs. Viva Iditarod!
Indeed, there will likely be no more Iditarod dog dopings reported in the foreseeable future. The Iditarod has learned that reporting doping equates to bad press on the national level. Even making it to ESPN. And in this case, all of this bad press for nothing … because Musher X is not named or disciplined. Sponsors might walk if doping tests implicated top mushers. So there will be no need for mushers to worry about getting caught doping for the next few years. The Iditarod has got to keep their sponsors from getting upset.
And you have this information on what authority, James???
“I’ve got a feeling!”
Bill Yank-it, My “authority” is knowing, dealing with, watching and (with several players) working with ITC members over the past 35 years. So maybe take your pointless posts to another web site and stop polluting Craig’s news site with your dribble. Thanks.
It’s “yank my doodle, it a dandy” James!
While you may consider them pointless, James, they are usually right on point. You don’t have to like them but have to put up with them. By the way, that is some collection of “authority” there, on the order of “drugstore cowboy” IMO.
out of competition testing would mostly be for anabolic steroids
follow the honey
not the money
Correction to the correction: he allegedly stole (or, “has been charged with stealing”) dog kennels. Presumption of innocence and all that (says the crim defense lawyer).
yes, and thank you much, Gavin. the writer knows better. it has been fixed. wish i’d caught it sooner. serious mistake. i believe in that innocent until proven guilty stand in a court of law.
No worries. Thanks for your attention to this and for making the change.
For f’s sake, if you actually look into the dog kennel story instead of rushing to be a drama queen, you’d probably write a reasonable article.
The story I read even mentioned it was “not” dogs that were stolen, but rather dog kennels. Perhaps Craig has access to something else that alludes to the stealing of dogs???
He might have some problem cleaning up this mess IMO.
i admit i didn’t pay much attention to the dog kennel story because i really don’t care. i’m sure if they were my dog kennels, i’d care a lot. but in the bigger picture, it’s an accusation of a few dog kennels snatched by a BOP musher with a long history of problems. it appears to be a story about a possible petty theft by someone we wouldn’t even know about if he didn’t have a famous half-brother. is there something i missed? i only mentioned it in this story because it popped into the news in an Iditarod-negative way when seriously negative things were happening.
Just a couple of things here, Craig: First its 5-time winner Rick Swenson and Second its Mackey being accused of stealing “dog kennels”, rather than dogs.
man, Bill; you must have been on that story almost as fast as i hit the publish button. i got both of those fixed pretty fast. long day and working without the help of an editor other than the small army of them online, which i truly appreciate. thanks.
As luck would have it, I had just read the ADN article about “dog kennels” and the Rick Swenson thing was just something I had stored years ago.