Sass took the lead early on, maintained it at the halfway point, and never relinquished it. The course was the traditional one this year, although some COVID-related restrictions remained: Participants had to have had vaccinations and agreed to have regular testing; as well, race organizers relocated some checkpoints in order to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus to remote villages.

Seavey just missed out on winning his record-breaking sixth title, coming in 68 minutes after Sass. Jessie Holmes, the 2018 Iditarod Rookie of the Year, finished third, nearly 13 hours later.

Sass grew up in Minnesota and moved to Alaska in 1998 in order to go to college at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He was on the cross country team there.

He eventually switched to sled dog racing, learning the ropes from four-time Iditarod champion Susan Butcher and her husband, David Monson. He finished third in the Iditarod last year and has won the Yukon Quest International, another 1,000-mile sled dog race, three times. His victory in 2022 was his seventh time running the Iditarod; he was named Rookie of the Year in 2012.

The event, which began in 1973, commemorates the 1925 Serum Run a desperate delivery of life-saving medicine across the frozen wilderness to children in Nome.