BEIJING, Feb. 27 -- The 20th Olympic Winter Games dropped its curtain in Turin on Sunday night.

    A party full of joy, to celebrate the success of the Olympic Winter Games and the athletes' victories, with a touch of sadness for an event that has come to an end. This is how the Closing Ceremony of Turin 2006 Winter Olympics presented itself.

    At this Olympics, the Chinese team won two gold medals, four silver medals and five bronze medals, China's best performance in history. Most remarkably, Chinese athlete Han Xiaopeng won the title of men's freestyle skiing aerials, which was China's first gold medal in a snow event and he became the first Chinese male gold-medal winner at a winter Olympics.

    Deputy chief of Chinese delegation in Turin, Xiao Tian, said Chinese athletes have made progress in winter sports and young athletes like women's 500-meter short track gold medallist Wang Meng, have demonstrated talent in the arena. But compared with summer games, China's winter sports are still undeveloped.

    "Of course, the development of summer games and winter games is unbalanced in China. But the good performance at this Olympics will greatly push the development of winter sports and we will develop some new winter sports."

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    And he proposed to extend the winter sports nationwide.

    "To develop winter sports, we can't rely on only two or three northern provinces. If more people in southern provinces participate in winter sports, it will definitely improve the overall level of winter Olympics. We have set up a policy to promote winter sports to the south but we need cooperation from the government."

    President of the International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge said during an interview with CRI that China will become a world power in winter sports in the future.

    18 countries overall have shared 84 gold medals at this Olympics. Germany tops all countries by grabbing 11 golds, 12 silvers and six bronzes, followed by the United States and Austria. China settled for the 14th place on the medals tally. The next Olympic Winter Games will be held in Canada's Vancouver in 2010.

(Source: CRIENGLISH.com/Photo: Xinhua)

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