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In a spectacular South Asian Federation (SAF) Games closing ceremony Thursday, Pakistan passed the host baton to Sri Lanka to stage the 10th games in Colombo in 2005.

Syed Arif Hasan, organising committee chairman, handed over the flag to the head of Sri Lanka National Olympic Committee, Hemasiri Fernando, at the Jinnah Stadium in a ceremony attended by Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali.

Sri Lanka will host the 10th South Asian Games in Colombo in 2005. The official Games flag was handed over to Sri Lanka during the closing ceremony of the 9th Asian Games in Islamabad, Pakistan on Wednesday. Here the President the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka, Hemasiri Fernando (right) proudly holds the South Asian Games flag after receiving it from Seyd Aliff Hassan. (AFP)

It will be the third time that Sri Lanka will have hosted the games. It was due to host the this games but let Pakistan step in as a goodwill gesture.

But it will be the last SAF games, after the South Asian Olympic Committee (SAOC) decided to rename it the South Asian Games in future.

The committee also agreed to add a further four disciplines to the next games, taking the number to 19.

Hasan said the committee would finalize the date of the 10th games in a meeting in two months time. "They have already proposed archery and judo as the two events to be included. However, two more would be included to raise the strength of the events to 19," he said. Singers, folk dancers and performers entertained the athletes at a colourful closing ceremony before some 45,000 spectators.

Some 70 performers presented a dance event called "Affinity", illustrating the historical and cultural links between the eight participating nations.

The games were originally scheduled to take place in October 2001 but were postponed in the wake of the September 11 attacks in America and the subsequent US-led military campaign in Afghanistan.

They were rescheduled for March 2002 but again put off due to a tense stand-off between Pakistan and India that brought them to the brink of war. They were delayed a third time in March last year due to the war in Iraq.

Some 1,800 athletes competed in the 10-day event, with Afghanistan taking part for the first time.