by sportswriter Ma Xiangfei

    CHANGCHUN, Northeast China, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- From the Turin Winter Olympic Games one year ago, the Asian athletes brought back nine gold medals, seven silvers and seven bronzes -- out of 84 events.

    When the 6th Asian Winter Games is to ring down the curtain here Sunday evening, the world-level skaters and skiers excelled as expected but many medalists still have a long way to catch up with the top athletes in the world.

    Short-track speed skating, figure skating and freestyle skiing displayed some high standard actions among the 47 events of the Asian Winter Games.

    Olympic champions from China and South Korea ensured the short-track speed skating to be the most hotly-contested events as Turin 500m women's champion Wang Meng of China and South Korea's two Olympic triple winners Ahn Hyun-Soo and Jin Sun-Yu each had two titles to their names. During the process, Ahn suffered from a bad cold, which could hardly reduce his stardom in China.

    Figure skating also caught much attention as former pairs world champions and Olympic bronze medalists Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China gave the sport a huge lift in Changchun.

    The ladies event would have posed as one of the best competitions if South Korea's World Cup Finals titlist Kim Yu-Na and World Cup winner Mao Asada from Japan, both at 16, were not missing from the field.

    Freestyle skiing saw Olympic champion Han Xiaopeng of China taking the men's aerial and Turin silver medalist Li Nina excelling in the women's competition.

    For events like speed skating, ice hockey, curling, biathlon, Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, the winners at the Winter Asiad are lesser known to the world.

    Lee Kang-Seok of South Korea was the sole Asian male speed skater with a medal, a bronze, in the Olympics before he won the same event of 500m here.

    Chinese Wang Beixing eased to the 500m and 1,000m victories in Changchun but the results of the 21-year-old could only rank seventh and 29th respectively in the Turin Olympics.

    Asian men's curling failed to make it to last year's Olympics and Asian Winter Games runners-up Japan ended up seventh in the women's action in Turin.

    South Korea, Asian Winter Games champions in both events, neither showed up in the World Championships, nor the Olympics.

    The highest-ranked ice hockey team in the Games is the Chinese women's team, seventh in the world, and Kazakhstan, placed ninth, won the women's title here at the Winter Asiad.

    For the men's tournament, world number 21 Japan triumphed in Changchun as Japan, China and Kazakhstan were the only teams in the world Group B.

    The Chinese hailed at Liu Xianying, the only triple champion here but she only stood in 7th in the 12.5km biathlon mass start competition in Turin and the winning time in the men's 20km individual biathlon could only give Alexandr Chervyakov of Kazakhstan a 81st finish in Turin.

    Maxim Odnodvortsev, 26, grabbed two crowns in the men's cross-country skiing. His best result, however, was a 9th finish in the men's 30km pursuit from four events he competed in Turin. The top eight in the 30km pursuit in Turin were all from Europe.

    The 27-year-old Japanese Ikuta Yasuhiro also had two golds in the men's Alpine skiing but the Asian Winter Games best finished outside of top 30 in the Olympics in the slalom.