Queen closes 'stunning' games

Australia's Dyana Calub (50m backstroke) wins one of the games' last gold medals Sunday

MANCHESTER, England -- Queen Elizabeth II has closed the Commonwealth Games in a colourful ceremony that marked the climax of her Golden Jubilee year.

She watched with the Duke of Edinburgh as hundreds of schoolchildren in the City of Manchester stadium paid tribute to her with a hip-hop version of the Handel anthem that was played at her Coronation.

In a lavish and spectacular ceremony, the 800 children were painting a 120-ft high portrait of the monarch on a swathe of fabric as a Golden Jubilee present to her.

The Coronation Anthem, sung at every coronation since that of George II in 1727, was turned into hip-hop for the evening by children from local schools.

It was the start of a two-hour extravaganza in the £110 million ($172m) stadium which has been the centrepiece of a 10-day-long sporting festival hailed by critics as a "stunning" success for England's third city.

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The evening ended as the games had begun 10 days ago with a dazzling fireworks display which could be seen for miles around.

Despite Manchester's rain-and-cobbled streets image the crowds were huge for the athletics events and the standard of competition surpassed the expectations of the organisers.

British Olympic Committee chairman Craig Reedie told the UK's Press Association on Sunday that they could help pave the way for a possible bid to hold the 2012 Olympics in London.

These games were in effect a downscaled Olympics, with competitors limited to those from the 54-nation Commonwealth of mainly British ex-colonies.

In the end around 4,500 athletes joined the celebrations that were following the Queen's official closing of the event.

It was an emotionally-charged day for the British monarch, whose mother would have been celebrating her 102nd birthday.

Among the performers entertaining a sell-out 38,000 crowd in the stadium were British pop idols Will Young and Dave Stewart, reggae veteran Jimmy Cliff, singers Heather Small, Ms Dynamite and Beverley Knight and the band Toploader.

Stars of the British TV soap Coronation Street arrived in one of 40 Morris Minor cars, to become the centrepiece of a Busby Berekley-style song-and-dance showpiece before the final party hosted by rap legend Grand Master Flash.

Competitors chosen from each of the Commonwealth nations formed a parade around the stadium to the accompanyment of a 300-strong brass band.

Star Australian singer Vanessa Amorrosi also starred in a performance to mark the handover of the games to her home town of Melbourne, where they will be staged in 2006.

More than 3,000 people -- 2,000 of them children -- also took part in a spectacular presentation with lights and lanterns in which giant tableaux representing the religions of the world paraded before the lanterns spelt out the words "Seek Peace" in vast letters on the floor of the arena.

As part of the ceremony, the special David Dixon award for an athlete making an outstanding contribution to their team and embracing fair play, was presented to 18-year-old South African swimmer Natalie du Toit.

Despite losing a leg in an horrific moped accident in February last year, du Toit, from Cape Town, won gold in both the 50m and 100m freestyle multi-disability events, as well as reaching the final of the 800 metres freestyle in the able-bodied competition.

In the party that followed nearly 40,000 balloons were released in the stadium as around 500 of the 10,000 volunteers that have been on duty joined in the celebrations, ending with the firework spectacular.

The Queen met a group of competitors at a private reception before the ceremony, which was also being attended by the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

Bars and restaurants and cafe bars in Manchester have reported a threefold increase in takings during the games, which have seen hotels full and 11,000 passengers flowing through Manchester Airport to attend.

Large parts of East Manchester around the stadium have been redeveloped and it is estimated that 300,000 more visitors annually will come to the city as a result of the high profile the sporting festival has brought.

Bulldozers move onto the arena site tomorrow to start work converting it into a 50,000-seater soccer stadium which will become home to newly promoted English premiership side Manchester City at the start of the 2003 season this month.