Sports

Several Alaska athletes competed in the Special Olympic World Summer Games in Berlin, Germany this month. Eagle River resident Bobby Hill took home a gold medal and three silvers in various weightlifting events.

Hill has been doing Special Olympics for more than 30 years. He says training for multiple events means keeping up his strength. While he likes earning medals, he says he appreciates meeting other athletes more.

“It’s great, and really awesome,” Hill said. “But I like being with my friends.”

Hill earned a gold medal in bench press, lifting 70 kilograms – or 154 pounds. He took silver in squat, deadlift and combination lifting as well.

Hill’s father, Bobby Sr, says his son has always loved sports and started competing in the Special Olympics when he was 8. In addition to the accolades, Bobby Sr. says competing in powerlifting has helped his son live a healthier life.

This isn’t Hill’s first time at the World Summer Games. He competed in Dublin, Ireland in 2003 and Shanghai, China in 2007.

Hill wasn’t the only Alaskan to shine at this Summer Games. Palmer resident Gretchen Winter got 4th place in the 1500-meter run.

“Bobby and Gretchen have represented Alaska and the United States with pride,” said Special Olympics Alaska Interim CEO, Sarah Arts. “Watching Gretchen fight through an injury, never giving up, was incredibly inspiring. And Bobby rose to the occasion, lifting more than his bodyweight in all three of his lifts.”

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development is taking public comments for 30 days on a proposal that would limit participation on girls high school sports teams to “females who were assigned female at birth.”

If adopted, the effect of the new regulation would be to prohibit transgender girls from participating on girls sports teams; transgender boys would be allowed to participate on girls or boys teams.

Cooperative activities — those that have boys and girls on the same team — would not be affected.

The Alaska School Activities Association would be in charge of drafting rules for enforcement.

The Alaska state school board ordered the opening of the public comment period during a meeting earlier this month.

The board is scheduled to meet July 26 and, following the closure of the public comment period, could amend, rescind, or adopt the proposal.

Comments can be submitted by email to deed.commissioner@alaska.gov.

The Gold Medal Basketball Tournament was a familiar favorite for Southeast Alaska athletes for decades, until the COVID-19 pandemic hit the pause button. Last week, players took to the court at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé for the first time in four years. 

Reporter Klas Stolpe covered part of the tournament for the Juneau Empire. He spoke with KTOO’s Chloe Pleznac about some of the highlights and history of this beloved event.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Chloe Pleznac: Thank you so much for joining me today to talk about the Gold Medal basketball tournament last week. I wanted to start off just by asking how many teams participated in the tournament and where were they from?

Klas Stolpe: Well, they have four brackets and there’s a B bracket, a C bracket, Masters bracket and women’s bracket. And so you have eight teams in the B bracket, eight teams in the C bracket and six teams apiece in the Masters and women’s bracket. And they come from all over Southeast. You got Angoon, Haines, Hoonah, Hydaburg, Juneau, Kake, Metlakatla and Yakutat and Hydaburg. Usually don’t get a Juneau team in, usually if someone drops out at the last minute. And in this instance, I think Wrangell backed out of their entries, just couldn’t find enough players. 

Chloe Pleznac: So how did it go over the week who came out on top?

Klas Stolpe: Well, in the B bracket, which is kind of the more elite players. The entry from Juneau won this this bracket, then they defeated perennial power Hydaburg, and it was awesome, awesome tournament games in the beat all year long, all tournament long, I should say. And Juneau won 86 to 62 in the championship game. The C bracket which is 32 years and older, again, the FilCom Juneau team defeated Klukwanw 79 to 49. And the Masters bracket which is 42 years and older, Hoonah defeated the Juneau team 64 to 43. And in the women’s bracket, Prince of Wales defeated Yakutat 79 to 38. And of course, there’s interesting stories in every bracket, which makes the tournament a lot of fun if you’re a media person. 

Chloe Pleznac: Well, that’s awesome. Was there any cultural significance that you noticed while covering this event?

Klas Stolpe: It’s funny because in Southeast Alaska, culturally, basketball has always and probably will always be just huge. I myself, you know, grew up in Petersburg, Alaska, before the internet age and before cell phones, and I still have lifelong friends that I’ve met across Southeast through basketball. Its course is really big in rural Alaska and the small communities and larger ones. They always share common courts when they play. Originally this tournament started in 1947. A Boy Scout executive for Southeast Alaska, his name was Dell Hanks, he had traveled all around Southeast on his missions, and he noticed how big basketball was. And he was talking to the Juneau Lions Club and they got this idea to start this tournament. So that said, it slowly gathered, it steamrolled over the years into this major tournament. And while it originally started with community pride, and gathering and seeing opponents and old friends again and again, and establishing and strengthening relationships. You usually at these tournaments, will have a couple of special activities during the week there. You know, there’ll be a Native dance group, a local cheerleading group. There’s usually a welcoming blanket dance where the names of every tribe are pronounced out and people in the stands will come down and of course, we always have frybread that’s passed out and the lobby is filled with vendors and the stands with fans and, of course, there’s some thick skinned referees. So yeah, it becomes a huge fun event.

Chloe Pleznac: Was there anything that surprised you covering this?

Klas Stolpe: Cassie Williams, she was the MVP of the women’s bracket. And she remembered when I interviewed her, she remembered traveling to the tournament as a kid and watching her mom and play and win a women’s championship. And now it’s 20 years later, and two of her mom’s teammates were on this year’s team. And her mom was in the stands watching Cassie win a championship so that was cool. Wow. And and then, in Juneau, do you notice FilCom a guy named Alex Heumann dreamed of winning a gold medal championship with his youth and high school teammate Larry Cooper. Plus he was playing for a family member who had passed and so they won a championship together. And Metlakatla’s Willie Hayward, who is just an icon in Southeast basketball, he was playing with his son. And Hydaburg’s Matt Carle – who was another icon and now he’s, he’s moved to Juneau – he was playing with his son Jaren on the Hydaburg team. You get all these little. I mean, it’s just families gathering, and very good competition. Hydaburg, Vinnie Edenshaw, I mean, he’s the smallest player on the court. But he was the tournaments, leading scorer. And there’s a great game well, Hydaburg defeated Angoon in a double elimination game was double overtime. And Hydaburg trailed by two points with .03 seconds remaining in the game, and the aforementioned Edenshaw on the line. So everyone thinks he’s going to tie this game up. But he misses the first free throw, so he had to miss the second, and the ball bounced back out and was tipped in the air by his teammate, George Peratrovich. And it tied the game and ascended into the second overtime and Hydaburg advanced. So that was pretty cool.

Chloe Pleznac: Wow, that is pretty cool. Thank you for telling that story. And thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I really appreciate it.

While the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was making statewide, national and international news over the past week, another group of trail enthusiasts was blazing a path alongside the mushers.

Miron Golfman of Anchorage crossed the finish line of the Iditarod Trail Invitational in downtown Nome Wednesday at 12:51 p.m. The human-powered race follows the path of the famed dog race.

The Iditarod Trail Invitational, a bike, ski and foot race, travels from Knik Lake near Anchorage to the interior community of McGrath, continuing to the Bering Sea before reaching the trail’s conclusion in Nome.

The course travels along the Historic Iditarod Trail and, according to race organizers, requires self-sufficiency and resilience to make it through up to 30 days and nights of freezing temperatures and inclement weather.

Golfman left Knik Lake on Feb. 26 and finished in Nome with a moving time of 6 days, 21 hours, 5 minutes. He had a resting time of 10 days, 1 hour, 34 minutes. He averaged 5.9 mph while underway and covered an average of 57.1 mile a day.

Conditions were treacherous from the start, he said.

“We went right into first night, and it was negative 30 degrees out on the Yentna River, and a lot of folks got frostbite and got eliminated immediately … on day two we hit this big snowstorm and we all contended with that,” Golfman said. “We were able to get up and over the Alaska Range before the snowstorm hit us, but we were just like everyone else contending with that and 80 mph winds, and it was whiteout snowing.”

Conditions warmed up on Monday, and that brought a different kind of challenge to the trail, according to Golfman.

“I clocked 49 degrees on my thermometer at the peak in one day, and so everything turned to slush,” Golfman said. “I ended up spending almost two days pushing my bike, and my every bit of gear got wet because the second day it rained, and I was pushing my bike through about seven hours of rain. Everything got drenched.”

Riding on his 9ZERO7 Lynxbike, Golfman was racing to raise funds for the Ride to Endure project.

“This was my second annual ride for the Ride to Endure campaign, which is a charity that I started a couple years back,” Golfman said. “It is raising funds and awareness for ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

Golfman’s uncle is six years into his battle with that disease. Golfman has previously lived with him and was his primary caregiver. It was the experience of taking care of him that inspired Golfman to pursue his passion of becoming a bike racer.

A total of 98 competitors took part in this year’s invitational. Three more bikers finished together Thursday night, just before Iditarod musher Mike Williams, Jr. crossed under the burled arch in Nome.

Ryan Redington is the champion of the 2023 Iditarod, a sled dog race his grandfather founded more than 50 years ago.

Redington and his team of six dogs cruised down Front Street in Nome at 12:13 p.m. Tuesday to claim his first Iditarod win on his 16th try. The team was led by 4-year-old Sven and 6-year-old Ghost. Redington pumped his fists in the air as the crowd cheered. Temperatures hovered in the single-digits on the sunny afternoon. He pet each of his dogs. He got hugs from family. He thanked his fans.

“It means everything to bring that trophy home,” said Redington in the finish chute. “And, yeah, it’s been a goal of mine since a very small child, to win the Iditarod. And I can’t believe it. It finally happened. It took a lot of work, took a lot of patience and we failed quite a few times, you know, but we kept our head up high and stuck with the dream.”

Redington, 40, has deep mushing roots, and his Iditarod win is the first in his family.

Redington’s grandfather, Joe Redington Sr., is known as the “Father of the Iditarod,” and ia credited with pioneering the race. Ryan Redington is the son of Raymie who has raced a dozen Iditarods and he’s the nephew of Joee, who placed third in 1975. His brothers, Ray and Robert, have also competed. Ray’s highest finish was fourth and Robert’s was 22nd.

“Yeah it’s been a very dogged life for all of us,” said Ryan Redington. “And it is very — something that we all work toward every day, no days off, we think about winning the Iditarod.”

He credited his brothers for helping him race.

“I want to thank them for their courage and their advice,” he said.

For his first-place finish, Redington will receive a portion of the $500,000 prize purse based on how many teams make it to Nome. He also wins a trophy — a bronze statute of his grandfather.

Redington, a father of three now, splits his time between Wisconsin and Knik, where he grew up mushing and playing basketball.

Redington began racing the Iditarod in 2001. He scratched from seven of his first 12 races, and then appeared to hit his stride in 2020. He placed in the top 10 that year, and then the next two years after that. Before Tuesday, his highest finish was seventh in 2021. That same year, he won the Kobuk 440 in a competitive field and was the only musher to complete the entire course after extreme conditions forced several other contenders to call in a rescue. He has also won the competitive 300-mile Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon in Minnesota twice.

His victory Tuesday makes him not only the first Redington to win the Iditarod, but also the first musher to win both the 1,000-mile race and the Jr. Iditarod. He won the junior race in 1999 and 2000.

In this year’s Iditarod, Redington was near the front of the pack from the beginning of the race. He was the first musher to Rainy Pass, resting through the relatively warm hours of the day, when temperatures rose above freezing.

He continued to run toward the front of the pack, arriving first in McGrath, near race mile 300. But by the time teams reached the Yukon River, about halfway through the race, Redington appeared to have fallen behind 2022 champion Brent Sass and Jessie Holmes.

“I’m just hoping they goof each other up, push each other a little too much,” Redington said at the Grayling checkpoint about his chances of winning.

At the next checkpoint, Sass scratched, saying he had a bad cold and serious pain from three cracked teeth. Farther down the Yukon River, Holmes’s team faltered, taking long and frequent rests on the trail. Holmes said he had hoped to take his mandatory eight-hour rest in Shageluk but discovered his drop bags hadn’t arrived. So he pushed down the trail another 25 miles to Anvik. He said his team lost its spark after that run.

Sass and Holmes’s exit from the top of the race gave Redington a window to victory, along with 2019 champion Pete Kaiser of Bethel and Aniak’s Richie Diehl. The three mushers, all Alaska Native, arrived in Kaltag within 32 minutes of one another, with Redington leading the way and with just 350 miles to the finish line.

But it was only Redington who gambled on a marathon run to the Bering Sea coast. His team cruised down an 85-mile section of trail to arrive in his mom’s birthplace of Unalakleet early Sunday. He said it felt like a “childhood dream coming alive.”

He left across the sea ice toward Koyuk after a few hours of rest, with Kaiser trailing 50 minutes behind.

Kaiser at first appeared to be clawing back time on Redington, but then he stopped in Elim for more than five hours while Redington’s team charged ahead, stopping only for a few minutes throughout a 94-mile, more than 13-hour stretch. Kaiser said he realized he couldn’t catch up to Redington, so he opted for the extended stop. He reasoned that if something unexpected happened to Redington’s team on the notoriously unpredictable coast, his team would be ready to take the lead.

Redington said he saw his long run as his “only chance” to beat Kaiser and Diehl, who he said he enjoyed competing against.

“I’ve been seeing them a lot throughout the race and they’re great competitors and they’ve got great dog teams and I’ve had a lot of fun with them on the trail,” he said in Nome.

Kaiser’s decision to stop in Elim let Redington arrive in White Mountain with a comfortable lead. After his mandatory eight-hour rest, he left the checkpoint at 12:15 a.m. Tuesday, four hours ahead of Kaiser and Diehl, who departed within minutes of one another.

From there, he and his dog team mushed through heavy winds on the last 100 miles of the race to Nome.

Three Alaska Native mushers are leading the charge to Nome in this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Ryan Redington of Knik and his eight-dog team were the first into and out of the Elim checkpoint on Monday morning. They left at 8:48 a.m., after stopping just 13 minutes. Elim is at race mile 875.

Redington was closely followed into Elim by Pete Kaiser of Bethel and his eight dogs at 9:02 a.m. Kaiser opted to rest longer in Elim and, according to the race GPS, was still at the checkpoint by 12:15 p.m.

Aniak’s Richie Diehl was also stopped in Elim. Diehl and his eight dogs pulled in at 12:06 p.m.

From Elim, the mushers head to White Mountain, almost 50 miles further down the trail.

All teams must take an eight-hour stop in White Mountain before the final, 77-mile push to the Nome finish line.

Back in Grayling on Friday, Redington said he’s good friends with Kaiser and Diehl, and said they’ve both taught him a lot in the Iditarod.

Before this year, Redington’s best Iditarod finish was seventh in 2021. Redington splits his time between Knik and Wisconsin. He has deep roots in the Iditarod. His grandfather, Joe Redington Sr., is one of the race founders. His dad, Raymie Redington, has raced a dozen Iditarods, and his two brothers have also competed.

Diehl’s best finish is sixth in both 2022 and 2018. And Kaiser has been a consistent top performer, placing in the top 10 in seven of his 13 Iditarods. Kaiser also became the first Yup’ik musher to win the Iditarod in 2019.

As of Monday afternoon, a total of 30 teams remained in the Iditarod, stretched over about 250 miles of trail.

A 2023 Iditarod winner is expected Tuesday morning.