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Beijing brought down the curtain on a summer of sporting excellence with a fourth spectacular ceremony in six weeks at the Bird's Nest stadium to close the Paralympics on Wednesday.

In a sumptuous pageant, again produced by film director Zhang Yimou, 2,000 dancers in brilliantly colourful costumes dazzled the 91,000 crowd with a performance on the theme of "a letter to the future" to bid farewell to the 4,000 Paralympians.

"These are the greatest Paralympic Games ever," International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Philip Craven said.

"The spirit that is ever bright in our movement found here in China a kindred spiritone world, one dream, one people has become a reality."

In China the disabled have often been stigmatised and suffered from a lack of facilities and chief Beijing organiser Liu Qi said he thought the success of the Games would leave a great legacy.

"This Paralympic Games has been a great event to arouse public interest and to promote the cause for people with a disability," he said.

"Public accessible facilities have been significantly improved and an accessible bridge has been formed to join our hearts."

China, as they did at the Olympics and at the 2004 Athens Paralympics, topped the medals table with 89 golds and 211 total medals in a display of dominance that saw them more than double the haul of second-placed Britain on both counts.

Britain, who host the next Games in London in 2012, finished second with 42 golds, the U.S. third with 36 while Ukraine (24) pipped Australia (23) to fourth place.

The issue of classification, which sorts the athletes into classes according to their disability, sometimes clouded the competition with Paralympians being re-assessed mid-Games and stripped of medals or excluded altogether.

Doping, however, was not a major problem with no positive samples to date from the more than 1,000 tests conducted, although four athletes fell foul of pre-Games tests.

"We think that what's been put in place herehas shown that Paralympics are near free of doping," said Craven. The two athletes who also participated in the Olympics, South African swimmer Natalie du Toit and Polish table tennis player Natalia Partyka, both found the success that had escaped them in August.

Partyka beat a string of Chinese to retain her individual gold in the hosts' national sport, while amputee du Toit scooped five gold medals in the Water Cube aquatics centre.

Du Toit's compatriot Oscar Pistorius, dubbed the Blade Runner because of the prosthetics that enable him to sprint, was the main draw in the athletics at the Bird's Nest and did not disappoint with 100, 200 and 400 metre gold medals.

The 21-year-old double amputee's bid to take part in the Olympics foundered when he failed to achieve the qualifying time and he has now targeted a place alongside the best able bodied 400m runners in London 2012.

Big crowds were seen at most venues and the vast Olympic Green, where the majority of the major venues were situated, often looked busier than it had during August's Games.

Wheelchair tennis and basketball enthralled packed houses, while lesser known sports such as wheelchair rugby and boccia gained new fans.

The red double decker bus that starred in London's eight minutes at the Olympic closing ceremony made another appearance on Wednesday after the British capital's mayor Boris Johnson had accepted the Paralympic flag as the next hosts.

Blue skies and good weather in the main presided over the 12-day event, but the traffic restrictions and factory closures that have kept Beijing's notorious pollution at bay for the last two months come to an end on Saturday.

AFP