Iditarod race festivities begin

Hundreds of sled dogs and thousands of fans lined up along Anchorage's Fourth Avenue on Saturday for the ceremonial start of the 1,100-mile (1770-kilometer) Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

The dogs leaped and barked when it was their turn to leave the downtown chute for an 11-mile run across Alaska's largest city. Mushers ran with 12 dogs instead of the 16-dog teams they'll use when the actual competition starts Sunday in Willow, about 50 miles to the north.

Seventy-one teams are entered in the trek to Nome, an old gold rush town on Alaska's western coast. More than a third of the mushers are from seven other countries and nine other U.S. states.

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