International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach (left) passes the Olympic flag to Pyeongchang Mayor Lee Sok-ra on Sunday.

For the last seven years critics have lined up to paint the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics as a wasteful extravagance. A $50 billion project designed purely to allow President Vladimir Putin to show off modern Russia’s might.

Certainly the price tag was enormous, there can be no argument about that. And Putin did successfully use the Games to showcase feats of engineering and architecture; building an entire resort from the ground up.

On a personal level, Russia’s leader revealed a different side, launching a charm offensive by visiting the United States team at USA House, drinking a glass of red wine with American officials.

Security, a hot topic before the Games, was sure-handed but softly, softly; and athletes and visitors showered the Games with praise.

There were a handful of protests but overall relatively few dissenting voices despite the widespread criticism of costs, human rights and corruption claims in the buildup.

On balance the Sochi Games proved to be an effective, if stupendously expensive, advertisement for Putin’s Russia.

It certainly helped that Russia topped the medal standings, whatever way you looked at it, by golds or by total medals.

New stars were born on the snow and ice, while others disappeared in a smudge of tears.

South Korea’s figure skating queen Kim Yuna was denied what had looked like being back-to-back golds in the women’s individual event following her peerless skate at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

The judges disagreed and Russia celebrated a new darling in its first individual women’s champion ­– Adelina Sotnikova.

Most were left scratching their heads, while Kim was left crying in the corridors.

A scoring controversy in figure skating is nothing new, but some extreme sports at the Games are, and Sochi saw the introduction of brand new disciplines at the Extreme Park.

In fact the Park proved so extreme that the world’s most famous snowboarder Shaun White elected to withdraw from one event over fears about course safety.

While White was mocked by some for his cautious move, there were sickening reminders of the dangers of extreme sports, none more so than the training accident suffered by Russian freestyle skier Maria Komissarova, who fractured a vertebra and dislocated her spine during practice.

On the ice, Russia’s quarter-final loss to Finland in the men’s ice hockey took the air out of what would have been a defining event of the Games had they progressed. Canada beat the United States in a flat semi-final and went on the win the gold.

The US flopped in the bronze medal game, losing 5-0 to the Finns.

The women’s final, in contrast, was a sensational affair, with Canada again beating the United States with a comeback overtime win for a fourth successive gold.

In another milestone moment, Germany’s Carina Vogt flew 104.5 metres through the air to win the first women’s Olympic ski jumping competition, the 22-year-old’s flight to gold marking the end of a 13-year fight by female athletes to be allowed to take part.

There was another first in one of the Olympics’ blue riband events on the slopes. After a daredevil descent down Rosa Khutor’s downhill run, Slovenia’s Tina Maze and Swiss Dominique Gisin could not be separated, both clocking one minute 41.57 seconds to share gold – the first time an Olympic skiing race had seen joint winners.

America’s Mikaela Shiffrin, still only 18, became the youngest ever Olympic slalom champion, while compatriot triple world champion Ted Ligety stormed the giant slalom to become the first American to win two men’s Alpine golds.

Forty-year-old Ole Einar Bjoerndalen beat the odds to set a record of 13 Winter Games medals by winning the biathlon sprint and the mixed relay.

Martin Fourcade, of France, with two golds and one silver, was the most decorated man and Darya Domracheva, with three titles, was the most successful woman.

Britain won its first ever Olympic medal on snow when Jenny Jones, at 33 the oldest snowboarder in the slopestyle competition, took bronze. The previous 22 British medal winners had all competed on ice.

The Adler Arena was painted Orange as the Dutch dominated long-track speed-skating while the US fell apart, winning no medals.

Impressive Dutch

Netherlands took eight golds out of a possible 12 in Sochi. It included four medal sweeps in the 10 individual events in a show of power not seen in any sport at a Winter Olympics before.

In short-track, Viktor Ahn won three gold medals to trigger wild celebrations in his adopted Russia – and heap yet more agony on his native South Koreans.

Ahn, who swapped Korea for Russia after the Koreans failed to select him for the 2010 Vancouver Games, confirmed his place among the greatest Winter Olympians of all time when he won the 1,000 metres, the 500m and helped Russia win the 5,000m relay. He now has six Olympic gold medals in total.

Korea will hope to have their house in order by the time they host the next 2018 Games.

Until then Russia will enjoy basking in the glow of 13 golds, 11 silvers and nine bronze medals from hosting its first Winter Games.