It ended just as spectacularly as it started.
Anyone visiting Guiyang, in southwestern China, this summer, will miss the coolness and the entertainment of the National Ethnic Games, but that doesn't mean you'll lose out entirely because there are still its delicious snacks - one of its most memorable features in fact.
Go deep enough into the history books looking for China's Guizhou province and you'll discover that this ethnic region has a long, splendid story to tell.
"Someone is going to get hurt today" - that was my initial thought as I walked into the stadium and first set eyes on Chinese tightrope walker Adili Wuxor.
A brief stop in play was called at the request of a player from Chongqing, who helped up his opponent from Guizhou.
Guizhou's geography is punctuated by hills and forests, but is perhaps best known among the Chinese for having the country's highest waterfall.
After two years of research by experts, Southwest China's Guizhou province has defined 17 items that represent cultures and traditions for ethnic groups that have lived in the region for generations.
For Gui Bin, winning a gold medal for his home province, Guizhou, at the National Ethnic Games would be the ultimate lifetime achievement.
The 17-year-old Wu Yueming is perched there gracefully on a 7.5-meter-long bamboo trunk in the middle of the river, using a long, thin strip of bamboo as a paddle to glide along with perfect balance and poise.
One of the major events of the ninth National Ethnic Games, which run Sept 10 to 18, was a special show that ran all day, complete with banquet and at least 20,000 guests from various ethnic groups, in Guiyang, Guizhou province, Thursday morning.
The ninth National Ethnic Games, in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province, had their opening ceremony on Saturday, and unlike the previous versions.
That big packet of chili sauce with the picture of a Miao woman smiling broadly, which came with my meal on the flight to Guizhou, should have tipped me off to the mealtime welcome I'd get in this southern province -- hot and spicy, with a this-is-me, take-it-or-leave-it attitude.