2004-Beringia sled dog race ends in Kamchatka

The 2004-Beringia sled dog race ended in Kamchatka (a peninsula in northeastern Russia), the organizing committee of the race told RIA Novosti.

Only 12 of the 16 teams finished the race. Four sled dog teams quit the race because of poor weather conditions on the two last legs of the race. Poor weather conditions also delayed the end of the race, which was scheduled for March 21, for more than 24 hours.

Yakov Tanvilin, a musher from the Koryak Autonomous Area (the north of Kamchatka), won the 950 kilometer race.

The race consisted of 14, 20-93 kilometer legs. The mushers ran teams of 8-14 dogs.

The race was held in extreme conditions: the temperature did not exceed minus 10-15 degrees Celsius during the day and minus 15-25 degrees Celsius during the night. The altitude of the course was 100-1,200 meters above sea level.

The administrations of the Kamchatka Region and the Koryak Autonomous Area and Beringia, a Kamchatka expedition club, organized the race.

The first Beringia race was held in January 1990, and since then, it has become a tradition. The Beringia-90 race was 250 kilometers long.

The length of the Beringia-91 race (1,980 kilometers) and the Beringia-92 race (2,044 kilometers) were entered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest distances traveled with sled dog teams.