Alaska's 2018 Iditarod sled race kicks off

The 2018 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race began with a leisurely 11-mile trot through downtown Anchorage on Saturday, to give fans a chance to get up close with the mushers and their four-legged teammates. The race-proper begins on Sunday in the nearby town of Willow. The finish line is in the town of Nome on the Bering Sea.

The 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) race has groups of dogs drag sled-riding mushers through grueling Alaskan conditions. Sixty-seven teams are vying for prizes worth $500,000 (€406,000) in the eight-day event. But this year's edition has been marred by a doping scandal revealed late last year.

In October 2017, organizers revealed that four-time winner Dallas Seavey was involved in the race's first doping scandal. Four of his dogs tested positive for the powerful opioid painkiller tramadol, but he was controversially not disqualified as organizers couldn't prove it was him who had doped the dogs. In 2017 he came in second, behind his father Mitch.

The race has also been hit with increasing pressure from animal rights activists and the associated loss of major sponsor Wells Fargo. Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a notoriously outspoken activist group, brought five headstones with the names of dogs that died in 2017 to the starting parade. They estimate more than 150 dogs have died over the Iditarod's history.

The race was founded in 1967 in tribute to the mushers and dogs who carried vital supplies to remote Alaskan outposts. The most famous run was in 1925, when a relay of teams delivered desperately-needed antitoxins during a blinding blizzard for children stricken by a diphtheria epidemic in Nome.

This year, racers have been handed optimum trail conditions. Recent events have been affected by a warming climate with the trail often significantly rerouted north. In 2018, the race will follow a southern route for the first time since 2013.