Di Centa's gold a fitting finale for Turin Games

Published on Monday 27 February 2006 02:20

ITALIAN cross-country skier Giorgio di Centa provided a perfect climax for the Turin Winter Olympics yesterday, fuelling celebrations to close the 20th Games.

Di Centa ended the two-week sporting extravaganza by winning the final cross-country skiing event.

Sweden then clinched the last gold medal up for grabs by edging Finland 3-2 in the ice hockey final.

But the party of the night was at the Olympic Stadium in Turin, where thousands donned carnival masks to join in a celebration of all things Italian.

Earlier, the 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."

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 more than two weeks 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 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 of the Games but it was Germany who topped the table with 11 golds in a 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 US, Russia and champions Canada left empty-handed.

Nicklas Lidstrom settled the 3-2 win 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.

"This is my last Olympics and it is an amazing way to go out," the 35-year-old Mats Sundin, a member of Sweden's last gold-medal team in 1994, said. "Lidstrom's goal should be on a postage stamp. They should definitely do it."