Carol Lin: Olympics end with a bang and a bust

CNN's Carol Lin

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) -- The 2002 Winter Olympics ended Sunday after an unusually strong showing by U.S. teams and a litany of controversies. CNN correspondent Carol Lin spoke to CNN's Paula Zahn about the last day of the games.

CAROL LIN: Its actually been a great story. Thirty-four medals, which is exactly what the U.S. Olympic Committee had been predicting for the last weeks as the American showing, has been spectacular.

There were great performances last night by a variety of artists, from Christina Aguilera to Willie Nelson to Kiss. If you can believe it, these guys are still performing out there in their platform shoes.

But of course this was a day of a bang and another bust. The Games ended in a drug bust. Two Olympic athletes were stripped of their medals, Spain's Johann Muehlegg, who won three gold medals but failed a drug test. He's a cross country skier. He failed a drug test right before the third and final victory, as well as Russia's Larissa Lazutina.She loses her gold medal, but keeps two silver medals.

Another Russian cross country skier was also disqualified because of Thursday's drug testing results, which showed a high level of hemoglobin in their blood, which indicated some form of doping to increase their endurance in competition.

So once again these Salt Lake Games, which started with a bribery scandal, are ending with a doping scandal. But all in all the Games were a really great success for most of the countries. Everybody showed up at the closing ceremonies, which was nice, despite the threat of boycotts by South Korea and Russia.