Special report: 10th National Games 

Chinese girls perform at the closing ceremony of the 10th National Games in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province Sunday October 23, 2005. Jiangsu garnered 56 gold medals to top the tally for the first time in an event widely considered a rehearsal for the 2008 Olympic Games. (Photo: Xinhua)

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attends the closing ceremony and declares closing of the 10th Chinese National Games in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province Oct. 23, 2005. (Xinhua Photo)

    NANJING, East China, Oct. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- The 10th Chinese National Games, a rehearsal of the 2008 Olympic Games, closed here on Sunday after 12 day's competition.

    Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao declared the closing of the Games inthe Olympic Sports Complex.

    With less than three years away from the Beijing Olympic Games,the quadrennial sports meet, billed as China's mini-Olympics, is widely regarded as a rehearsal of the Beijing Olympics.

    Host Jiangsu Province topped the medal standings with 56 golds, Guangdong was second with 46 and the Chinese Army was third with 44.

    Six world records have been broken in the Games and another sixwere equalled. Five Asian records were rewritten and another five levelled.

    The 10th Games, the largest ever in the history and the first that the host was decided by bidding, attracted 9,986 athletes and featured 32 sports, including all 28 summer Olympic ones.

    The showcase of the Games belonged to Shanghai's Olympic high hurdles champion Liu Xiang, the most striking sports figure in thecountry, who won China's first men's track-and-field Olympic gold last year in Athens. The 22-year-old clocked 13.10 seconds to retain his National Games title.

    The Games, which ran from October 12 to 23, was held in 54 venues spread among 13 cities across Jiangsu, one of China's fastest developing regions.

    The 11th National Games will be held in Shandong Province, east China, in 2009. Enditem

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