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Got one right. I predicted that Doug Swingley was going to win the 28th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race - and he did. Matter of fact, Doug also said he was going to win. He was right, too. Of course, if you had asked all of those other top mushers, they would have said they were going to win. And they would have been wrong. In past years, I predicted my top 20 finishers in order. This year, because the Iditarod expanded the prize-money positions from top 20 to top 30, I decided to expand, as well. So I had more opportunities to make mistakes. This was the largest Iditarod field of all, with 81 starters, and the most competitive, with seven former champions and several other top racers. Close readers will remember me saying that I had little confidence in my picks. Although I never have much faith in the likelihood that my picks will resemble the exact order of finish, I have usually named a very high percentage in-the-money finishers. And much to my surprise, I did so again. Except for the smudge on the glass that kept me from seeing the precise order of finish, the crystal ball was working pretty well. On March 3, here's what I said would happen in the 1,100-mile race from Anchorage to Nome: 1) Doug Swingley; 2) Rick Swenson; 3) Charlie Boulding; 4) Jeff King; 5) John Baker; 6) Martin Buser; 7) Ramy Brooks; 8) Paul Gebhardt; 9) Vern Halter; 10) DeeDee Jonrowe; 11) Rick Mackey; 12) Bruce Lee; 13) Ed Iten; 14) Mitch Seavey; 15) Ramey Smyth; 16) Linwood Fiedler; 17) Hans Gatt; 18) Bill Cotter; 19) Tim Osmar; 20) Sonny King; 21) Dave Sawatzky; 22) Mike Williams; 23) Harald Tunheim; 24) Russell Lane; 25) John Barron; 26) Mike Nosko; 27) Raymie Redington; 28) Juan Alcina; 29) Jerome Longo; 30) Jon Little. When it comes to predicting the results of sporting events, there is no exact science. In the Iditarod, weather can intervene and disrupt game plans. Dogs can get sick. Mushers can get sick. The unexpected happens. Here's how the real top 30 played out: 1) Swingley; 2) Gebhardt; 3) Jeff King; 4) Brooks; 5) Boulding; 6) Mackey; 7) Buser; 8) Swenson; 9) Seavey; 10) Cotter; 11) Smyth; 12) Gatt; 13) Lee; 14) Zach Steer; 15) Barron; 16) Osmar; 17) Alcina; 18) Sonny King; 19) Fiedler; 20) Jonrowe; 21) Halter; 22) Baker; 23) Little; 24) Iten; 25) Tunheim; 26) Sawatzky; 27) Tony Willis; 28) Williams; 29) Redington; 30) Aaron Burmeister. In all, I correctly named 27 of the top 30 mushers who finished in the money. Zach Steer was my biggest mistake. His 14th-place finish was a terrific performance. The others who fooled me were Tony Willis, the 18-year-old Anchorage lad who was rookie of the year, ahead of the other 28 rookie starters, and Aaron Burmeister, who moved up steadily to finish 30th. The mushers I picked to make the top 30 who didn't were Ed Iten, Russell Lane, and Mike Nosko, who in another race, at another time, will likely do so. Swingley, of Lincoln, Mont., did even better than I thought he would. Not only did Swingley maintain his status as the only musher from outside Alaska to win the Iditarod in notching his third title, but he set a record of 9 days, 58 minutes. Paul Gebhardt of Kasilof emerged from Iditarod 2000 as the next serious contender for a championship, a year before I figured he would. Ramy Brooks showed he did indeed gain confidence with his 1999 victory in the Yukon Quest and somehow challenged for the lead much of the race despite being on the verge of falling off his sled with his own illness. Brooks was so sick the entire race, he thought he might have pneumonia. It turned out to be a bad case of bronchitis, and a couple of days after finishing he was still not 100 percent. Overall, you've got to say my prognosticating was pretty good. Just don't ask me about my NCAA bracket. * This column is the opinion of Daily News sports editor Lew Freedman. He can be reached at lfreedman@adn.com
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