"I declare the 14th World Athletics Championships in Moscow open," a broadly smiling Putin said after an opening ceremony involving the music of Russian composers Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, and featuring a tour through aspects of the host country's history.

"With all my soul, I welcome you to this wonderful opening ceremony for this excellent festival."

He added: "Here at the Luzhniki arena, we expect to witness new outstanding achievements...

"I'm sure that the 14th World Athletics Championships will present us with new stars, new records and positive emotions."

International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President Lamine Diack took the opportunity to emphasise his organisation's hard line on doping following the recent spate of doping positives involving high profile athletes such as Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell.


The IAAF confirmed on the second day of its Congress that it would come in to line with the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) plans to reintroduce four-year doping bans from 2015.

"In any event, the IAAF remains vigilant and we will make use of every method...to make sure that doping never remains unpunished," Diack said.

The World Championships are the biggest athletics event in Russia since Moscow 1980 Olympics and form part of a series of huge sports events to be staged in Russia this decade, including next year's Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.


The Championships, being held from today until next Sunday (August 18) at the same venue that hosted the 1980 Games, will involve a record 1,907 athletes from 206 countries.

The Ceremony, which concluded with a giant fireworks display, included hundreds of youngsters and made reference to figures such as Dmitri Mendeleev, creator of the periodic table.

The performers dressed in white formed intricate patterns in the arena, dancing to a remixed version of Swan Lake and at one point forming a representation of the various lines of Moscow's subway system.

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