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| Fireworks explode over Olympic Park during the closing ceremony for the 2014 Winter Olympics, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. |
SOCHI, Russia
(AP) -- Flushed with pride after its athletes' spectacular showing at
the costliest Olympics ever, Russia celebrated Sunday night with a
visually stunning finale that handed off a smooth but politically
charged Winter Games to their next host, Pyeongchang in South Korea.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin, these Olympics' political architect and
booster-in-chief, watched and smiled as Sochi gave itself a giant pat on
the back for a Winter Games that IOC President Thomas Bach declared an
"extraordinary success."
The crowd that
partied in Fisht Olympic Stadium, in high spirits after the
high-security games passed safely without feared terror attacks, hooted
with delight when Bach said Russia delivered on promises of "excellent"
venues, "outstanding" accommodation for the 2,856 athletes and
"impeccable organization." The spectators let out an audibly sad moan
when Bach declared the 17-day Winter Games closed.
"We leave as friends of the Russian people," Bach said.
The
nation's $51 billion investment - topping even Beijing's estimated $40
billion layout for the 2008 Summer Games - transformed a decaying resort
town on the Black Sea into a household name. All-new facilities,
unthinkable in the Soviet era of drab shoddiness, showcased how far
Russia has come in the two decades since it turned its back on
communism. But the Olympic show didn't win over critics of Russia's
backsliding on democracy and human rights under Putin and its
institutionalized intolerance of gays.
Despite
the bumps along the way, Bach was unrelentingly upbeat about his first
games as IOC president and the nation that hosted it. One of Sochi's big
successes was security. Feared attacks by Islamic militants who
threatened to target the games didn't materialize.
"It's
amazing what has happened here," Bach said a few hours before the
ceremony. He recalled that Sochi was an "old, Stalinist-style sanatorium
city" when he visited for the IOC in the 1990s.
Dmitry
Chernyshenko, head of the Sochi organizing committee, called the games
"a moment to cherish and pass on to the next generations."
"This," he said, "is the new face of Russia - our Russia."
His
nation celebrated its rich gifts to the worlds of music and literature
in the ceremony, which started at 20:14 local time - a nod to the year
that Putin seized upon to remake Russia's image with the Olympics' power
to wow and concentrate global attention and massive resources.
Performers
in smart tails and puffy white wigs performed a ballet of grand pianos,
pushing 62 of them around the stadium floor while soloist Denis Matsuev
played thunderous bars from Sergei Rachmaninoff's Concerto No.2.
There
was, of course, also ballet, with dancers from the Bolshoi and the
Mariinsky, among the world's oldest ballet companies. The faces of
Russian authors through the ages were projected onto enormous screens,
and a pile of books transformed into a swirling tornado of loose pages.
There
was pomp and there was kitsch. The games' polar bear mascot - standing
tall as a tree - shed a fake tear as he blew out a cauldron of flames,
extinguishing the Olympic torch that burned outside the stadium. Day and
night, the flame had become a favorite backdrop for "Sochi selfies," a
buzzword born at these games for the fad of athletes and spectators
taking DIY souvenir photos of themselves.
"Now
we can see our country is very friendly," said Boris Kozikov of St.
Petersburg, Russia. "This is very important for other countries around
the world to see."
And in a charming touch,
Sochi organizers poked fun at themselves. In the center of the stadium,
dancers in shimmering silver costumes formed themselves into four rings
and a clump. That was a wink to a globally noticed technical glitch in
the Feb. 7 opening ceremony, when one of the five Olympic rings in a
wintry opening scene failed to open. The rings were supposed to join
together and erupt in fireworks.
This time, it
worked: As Putin watched from the stands, the dancers in the clump
waited a few seconds and then formed a ring of their own, making five,
drawing laughs from the crowd.
Raucous
spectators chanted "Ro-ssi-ya! Ro-ssi-ya!" - "Russia! Russia!" They got
their own Olympic keepsakes - medals of plastic with embedded lights
that flashed in unison, creating pulsating waves of color across the
stadium.
Athletes said goodbye to
rivals-turned-friends from far off places, savoring their achievements
or lamenting what might have been - and, for some, looking ahead to
2018. The city where they will compete, Pyeongchang, offered in its
segment of the show a teaser of what to expect in four years with video
of venues, Korean music and delightful dancers in glowing bird suits.
Winners
of Russia's record 13 gold medals marched into the stadium carrying the
country's white, blue and red flag. With a 3-0 victory over Sweden in
the men's hockey final Sunday, Canada claimed the last gold from the 98
medal events.
Absent were six competitors
caught by what was the most extensive anti-doping program in Winter
Olympic history, with the IOC conducting a record 2,631 tests - nearly
200 more than originally planned.
Russia's
leader had reason to be pleased as the Olympics dubbed the "Putin Games"
ended. His nation's athletes topped the Sochi medals table, both in
golds and total - 33. That represented a stunning turnaround from the
2010 Vancouver Games. There, a meager three golds and 15 total for
Russia seemed proof of its gradual decline as a winter sports power
since Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia's bag of Sochi gold was the
biggest-ever haul by a non-Soviet team.
Russia's
last gold came Sunday in four-man bobsled. The games' signature moment
for home fans was Adelina Sotnikova, cool as ice at 17, becoming
Russia's first gold medalist in women's Olympic figure skating.
Not
every headline out of Sochi was about sport. Going in, organizers faced
criticism about Russia's strict policies toward gays, though once they
started sliding and skiing and skating, most every athlete chose not to
use the Olympic spotlight to campaign for the cause. An activist musical
group and movement, Pussy Riot, appeared in public and was horsewhipped
by Cossack militiamen, drawing international scrutiny.
And
during the last days of competition, Sochi competed for attention with
violence in Ukraine, Russia's neighbor and considered a vital sphere of
influence by the Kremlin.
In an Associated
Press interview on Saturday, Bach singled out Ukraine's victory in
women's biathlon relay as "really an emotional moment" of the games,
praising Ukrainian athletes for staying to compete despite the scores
dead in protests back home.
"Mourning on the
one hand, but knowing what really is going on in your country, seeing
your capital burning, and feeling this responsibility, and then winning
the gold medal," he said, "this really stands out for me."
