Talkeetna musher Nicholas Sousa has won the 2020 Junior Iditarod.
Sousa, running his first Junior Iditarod, finished the 140 mile race in eighteen hours, twenty-three minutes, thirty seconds. That put him across the finish line more than half an hour before second-place finisher Julia Cross of Thunder Bay, Ontario.
While this was Nicholas Sousa’s first Junior Iditarod, he is no stranger to dog mushing. His father, Gerald Sousa, is an eleven-time Iditarod finisher, with his most recent finish coming in 2013. Up until a few weeks ago, however, he was not planning on running the race. According to an official Junior Iditarod news post, Sousa received a call from Ray Redington about three weeks before the Junior Iditarod asking if he would like to race with a team. After three weeks of intensive training, Sousa and his team ran a trail slowed by the weekend’s snowfall. He says he wants to continue mushing.
In addition to winning the race, Nicholas Sousa took home rookie of the year honors. Sousa is the first Talkeetna-based musher to win the Junior Iditarod.
