Lance Mackey

Lance Mackey (born June 2, 1970, Alaska, U.S.—died September 7, 2022) was an American sled dog racer who was the first person to win four consecutive Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Races (2007–10).

Mackey, the son of champion musher Dick Mackey, grew up in Alaska, where he was exposed to dogsled racing from an early age. When he was a toddler, his father helped found the Iditarod Trail Seppala Memorial Race (later named the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race), which stretched about 1,100 miles (1, 770 km) between the Alaskan cities of Anchorage and Nome. The event became the sport’s foremost competition. Mackey was one of four brothers who raced from childhood and who would eventually compete in the Iditarod. His father and eldest brother, Rick, won the Iditarod in 1978 and 1983, respectively.

Lance Mackey’s own experience as a musher began, as he put it, “at birth.” Prior to entering the Iditarod, Mackey competed between 1985 and 1988 in the Jr. Iditarod Sled Dog Race, an event established in 1978 as a training ground for eventual participants in the Iditarod. His best finish in the youth race was fourth place, in 1988. In 2001 he entered his first Iditarod and placed 36th out of 57 finishers. That same year he was diagnosed with throat cancer. After undergoing successful surgery and radiation treatments, Mackey entered the 2002 Iditarod, still using a feeding tube. His compromised health forced him to quit halfway through the race, and he took the following year off to recover. In honour of his medical struggles and eventual return to competition, Mackey named his kennel the Comeback Kennel.

Mackey returned to the Iditarod in 2004 and finished in 24th place. While continuing to compete each year in that race, he also began contending in the Yukon Quest, a 1,000-mile (1,609-km) dogsled race from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. He placed first every year from 2005, when he was a race rookie, to 2008, making him the first four-time winner of the event. Going into the 2007 Iditarod, Mackey had never placed higher than seventh, but that year marked his first Iditarod victory. He also became the first musher to win both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in the same year. He repeated that accomplishment in 2008, when he again achieved a first-place finish in both races. With his victory in the 2009 Iditarod, Mackey joined Susan Butcher and Doug Swingley as the only mushers to have won the event three consecutive times. On March 16, 2010, with a race time of less than nine days (a personal best for Mackey), he became the first person to win the Iditarod four times in a row.

Mackey continued to compete in the Iditarod, but now his results were disappointing. In addition, following the 2020 race—in which he finished in 21st place—it was announced that he had tested positive for methamphetamine and was disqualified. Mackey subsequently announced that he was entering a drug-treatment facility. More difficulties followed as his partner, who was also the mother of his two children, died in an ATV accident in October 2020. The following year Mackey revealed that he had again been diagnosed with cancer. He did not compete in the 2021 or 2022 Iditarod.