The 10th World Championships in Athletics (Finnish: Yleisurheilun maailmanmestaruuskilpailut 2005, Swedish: Världsmästerskapen i friidrott 2005), under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), were held in the Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland (6 August 2005 – 14 August 2005), the site of the first IAAF World Championships in 1983.

The original winning bid for the competition was for London but the cost to build the required stadium at Picketts Lock and host the event was deemed too expensive by the government.

[1] Helsinki was considered by many to be the outsider in the race to host the games with rival bids being presented by Berlin in Germany; Brussels in Belgium, Budapest in Hungary, Moscow in Russia and Rome in Italy.

[5] In March 2013, the IAAF announced that re-testing of samples taken during these championships revealed that five medal winners had proved positive for banned substances.

The athletes involved were Belarusian Nadzeya Ostapchuk (shot put gold), Belarusian Ivan Tsikhan (hammer throw gold), Russian Olga Kuzenkova (hammer throw gold), Russian Tatyana Kotova (long jump silver) and Belarus's Vadim Devyatovskiy (men's hammer silver).