"This unforgettable Australian experience must unfortunately come to a close," Steadward told the closing ceremony sell-out crowd of 87,000 on Sunday night.
"I hereby announce to you and the world that the 11th Paralympic Summer Games were the best ever," he added, drawing an enormous cheer.
"Thank you Australia for enhancing the profile of our athletes more than at any time in our history."
The Sydney Paralympics opened on October 18 with a low-budget, high-entertainment ceremony that immediately captured the public's imagination just 17 days after the Sydney Olympics had closed at the same stadium.
Sydney, Australia's biggest city with a population of 4.5 million, bought 1.2 million tickets for the Games, a Paralympic record and more than double the sales for the Atlanta Paralympics.
To organisers' amazement, noisy crowds filled every seat at sports like wheelchair rugby and boccia where athletes throw leather balls at a jack.
The spirit of the Paralympics was on display from the start as Turkmenistan wheelchair athlete Atajan Begniyazov, a powerlifter, did a handstand walk for 50 metres at the opening ceremony, thrilling the crowd who watched on the stadium screens as he repeated the effort several times.
His sport of powerlifting, however, was to soon plunge the Paralympics into controversy, as nine powerlifters from eight countries were each banned for four years for testing positive to banned substances as part of the out-of-competition tests.
On Sunday, a sprinter from the United States team, Brian Frasure, was stripped of his silver medal from the a 200 metres event after testing positive to nandrolone.
Another headache for IPC officials was the flag handover to the Athens Paralympics Games organising committee for 2004.
Delays in Games preparations and the signing of the contract left Steadward threatening earlier this month to cancel the flag handover at the closing ceremony, but the threat was dropped and the deputy mayor of Athens, Nikos Yiatrakos, accepted it.
Steadward said he recognised Athens had "so many more serious problems" with the Olympics themselves and if the Olympics did not go well nor would the Paralympics.
Athletes in Sydney prospered from advanced training methods and high-tech, lightweight equipment as they took another step forward in upgrading their public image from athletes with disabilities to elite sportspeople.
Four thousand competitors from 122 countries, plus the two independent athletes from East Timor, contested 18 sports where 550 gold medals were decided.
Olympics and Paralympics Minister Michael Knight, appointed earlier this month to help oversee the preparations in Athens for 2004, said he had been determined to improve on the way the Atlanta Paralympics of 1996 had been organised.
"There's no question in my mind that we've run a sensational Paralympic Games," Knight told a news conference on Sunday.
Reuters
