The XIII Winter Olympics ended in Lake Placid Sunday in a poignant ceremony that reminded the world what the endangered games are supposed to be about.

Lord Killanin said the friendly competitions the games espouse may help avoid the holocaust the world appears headed toward.

A toddler skated alone around the fieldhouse arena, the littlest athlete on a rink dotted with the cream of the world’s competitors on their way home from what many say were the most successful winter sports competitions ever.

By Monday afternoon, the only clue that hours before Lake Placid was a city of 100,000 people were the empty beer bottles and Coca-Cola cups littering the streets.

“Goodbye World! We’ve Had It,” a wag added to the menu in the press center cafeteria.

A spokeswoman at the Olympic village said it was virtually deserted by Tuesday morning. Its next tenants will be convicts.

“Thanks, Lake Placid,” read a hand-scrawled sign pasted to the store a Canadian delegation occupied. “It was fun.”

Gleeful visitors mugged for the ubiquitous ABC cameras on Main Street. Others examined proffered Olympic pins with the skeptical eye of a diamond trader or laughed at costumed street jesters’ antics.

Inside the fieldhouse Sunday, some spectators wept as they watched ceremonies which seemed warmer and more human than the pageantry of past days.

Folk dancers from Yugoslavia, host of the next Olympics, and from the northeastern United States, joined hands on the ice.

They were followed by a band of youngsters carrying banners handmade by people of the community.

The crowd cheered musician Chuck Mangione, who bounced nonstop like a yellow-and-purple pogo stick while he blew his trumpet.

Dorothy Hamill, the 1976 Olympic figure skating gold medalist, skated to his music.

She was preceded by Great Britain’s John Curry, another champion skater known for his artistic interpretations on ice.

They were followed by a parade of athletes carrying the flags of their countries, some of whom won medals here in past days.

The United States’ Eric Heiden, whose five gold medals are the record for the Winter Games, carried the Stars and Stripes. Skier Ingemar Stenmark, who captured two gold medals, was behind Sweden’s banner, while Liechtenstein’s Hanni Wenzel, who will bring home to her country its first Olympic gold medal, carried its flag.

“I’d like to thank the people of Lake Placid,” said Lord Killanin, president of the International Olympic Committee. “We know how hard they worked and how they contributed to the success of these games.”

“The spectators at these games have contributed to the understanding we in the Olympic movement believe in,” he added, “an understanding which is without race, religion or color.”

He said the world may avoid “holocaust” if its continues to meet in friendly competitions which aim to discern “what we have in common and not what our differences are.”

He concluded: “I declare the 13th Olympic Games closed and, in accordance with tradition, I call upon the youth of all countries to assemble four years from now at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia to celebrate with us the 14th Olympic Winter Games.”

—

After-use plans taking shape

Town and state officials are expected to come up with a comprehensive plan soon for marketing Lake Placid’s highly acclaimed winter sports facilities now that the Olympics are over.

Four world-class sporting events will be held here during the next two years, an Olympic official said Sunday, arranged during the Olympics by sports federation officials impressed with the town’s facilities.

“There are lots of things in the wind in the community due to the exposure it received during the Olympics,” Ed Lewi, press director for the Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee, told a weekend news conference.

The indoor ice complex may become a training center for a professional ice show, Mr. Lewi said, adding that officials are discussing establishing winter sports-related industries here. He declined to be more specific. Meanwhile, a state official said marketing the Lake Placid area as a complete recreation area is the key to ensuring the town’s financial success.