WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES: Italian cross-country skier Giorgio di Centa and the Swedish ice hockey team popped champagne corks yesterday before Turin prepared to celebrate late into the night the end of the 20th Winter Olympics.
Di Centa gave the hosts the perfect finale to the two-week sporting extravaganza by winning the final cross-country skiing event and Sweden clinched the last gold medal up for grabs by edging Finland 3-2 in the ice hockey final.
Earlier, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge had given the Games, which for much of its two weeks had been dogged by a drugs controversy, his stamp of approval.
"I can tell you that the IOC is happy with the Games," Rogge told a news conference. "I refer specifically to probably the best ever quality of sports infrastructure . . . security worked extremely well.
"The athletes are happy. We are very pleased that the athletes in the competition came to a very high level."
Rogge also praised measures taken to fight doping, saying with increased testing and better research the Olympic movement was now on a par with what the scientists were offering.
The Games were among the cleanest despite a week-long Austrian doping saga involving night-time raids, police and drugs testers. After 16 days of competition, more than 800 urine tests and 362 blood samples were taken and only one athlete - Russian biathlon silver medallist Olga Pyleva - failed a drugs test and was expelled.
Di Centa sparked wild celebrations when he crossed the line first in the punishing men's 50-km freestyle race in front of thousands of flag-waving local fans in bright sunshine in the Italian Alps.
His margin of victory of 0.8 seconds was the narrowest in this event in the history of the Olympics.
Di Centa's win gave Italy their fifth gold medal of the Games but it was Germany who topped the table with an impressive tally of 11 golds in a total haul of 29 medals.
The last two medals in Turin went to Sweden and silver medallists Finland in the most unexpected of ice hockey finals after traditional heavyweights USA, Russia and champions Canada left empty handed.
Nicklas Lidstrom settled it with a blistering snapshot early in the third period after Henrik Zetterberg and Niklas Kronwall had scored for Sweden. Kimmo Timonen and Ville Peltonen were the Finnish scorers. Sweden had won the gold once before at Lillehammer in 1994 when two members of the current squad, Peter Forsberg and Mats Sundin, helped them to victory.
"This is my last Olympics and it is an amazing way to go out," the 35-year-old Sundin said. "Lidstrom's goal should be on a postage stamp. They should definitely do it.
"It's the first time we've won a tournament against the best in the world and that shot will go into the history books," said Sundin.
The game set the scene for last night's closing ceremony. Thousands gathered at Turin's Olympic Stadium to join in the carnival to close the Games.
Organisers had said the audience would be wowed by a spectacular show of cartwheeling clowns and aerial acrobats.
