Yukon's Klondike Road Relay race shortened after highway collision
Organizers of the Klondike Road Relay race in the Yukon say the iconic 175-kilometre race is being shortened by a third, following a collision on the South Klondike Highway on Friday, hours before the event was to get underway.
Yukon RCMP first reported a single vehicle collision at 5 p.m. on Friday, at kilometre 52 of the highway.
The incident occurred near the Yukon suspension bridge in northern B.C., on a stretch of road used for the Klondike Road Relay race route.
Just after 6 p.m., 511 Yukon shared that the highway would allow traffic through at intervals near road marker 52. At 6:30 p.m., Yukon RCMP shared that both lanes had reopened to traffic.
There were no other details about the collision.
Tracey Bilsky, one of the organizers of the Klondike Road Relay, said they were altering the start of the event, which normally begins in Skagway, Alaska, and ends in Whitehorse.
"We're going ahead with the race from the Fraser border, the Canadian border crossing, which is Leg 4," Bilsky said. "We are having to start everybody exactly four hours after their scheduled Skagway start time.
"So if they were scheduled to start at 8:15 [p.m. on Friday] from Skagway, they will now start at 12:15 [a.m] at checkpoint four."
Bilsky said the challenge was to get that information to the hundreds of runners and volunteers who may already be on the road.
She said it was disappointing for the runners who had plannned to run one of those first three legs of the race for their team.
"But we hope they'll join us at the party in the park at the end of the race and that they'll cheer on the rest of their teams," she said.
The Canadian Border Services Agency will keep the Canadian border open overnight, and the U.S. Border patrol will keep the American border open until 7 a.m. to help accommodate teams returning to Skagway.
Bilsky said Friday evening that there were more than 800 people from Alaska in Skagway waiting for the race to begin. She asked that they refrain from departing more than two hours in advance of their start time to avoid lineups at the border.
"If they were supposed to leave at 8:15, then at 10:15 they would head down the highway to drive to checkpoint 4," she said.
She said more updates will follow on the race's social media page.
"We appreciate everyone's patience and understanding as we navigate through this," said Bilsky. "We're doing the best we can to give as many racers as as possible the experience they were hoping for."
In 2023, more than 1,700 people participated in the race.
