Bronze medal reasonable goal for Browning

PARIS - The Palais Omnisport Paris Bercy, a splendid building, seats 13,500, has three ice surfaces, a large one in the main structure and two smaller practice rinks, one named after Sonja Henie, who wasn't French but could skate a little.

Unusual in its construction are sloping outside walls of the massive structure covered with grass, gloriously green in an early Paris spring that has many tulips past their peak but the daffodils at theirs.

Clipping the growth on the steeply pitched walls is a tough task but it's less expensive than paint, barring an infestation of crab grass, dandelions or cinch bugs. Also it discourages worm-picking and dogs using it for a lavatory.

The flower of the globe's figure skating population, except a raft of Soviets with gimpy knees, has gathered here this week for the world championships. This post-Olympic year starts what skating folk call "the new quadrennial," concluding with another trip to France for the '92 Games in Albertville.

Yesterday was the last full day of practices for the competition and for aficionados, a full day of drills is a feast of the blade. Perch in a seat long enough and the best will pass before you, testing new routines.

Brilliant smile

Skaters who have passed all the tests are on hand, too. Yesterday, Katarina Witt was a spectator. The East German beauty won every skating honor, including the Olympics, at least a couple of times. Now she does exhibitions as a pro and studies for an acting career. Little has changed because Katarina lights up a large building with that smile.

A "must-see" on the workout schedule was a check of the Witt successors from the stable of Utta Mueller, the coach who masterminded the Witt brilliance. Evelin Grossman and Simone Lang, both 18, are Witt clones, tall, pretty, elegant and athletic.

Scott Hamilton, who's short and balding, won Olympic and world gold and now he is a commentator on U.S. telecasts, which helps sell tickets for the ice shows he assembles. Hamilton logged many hours at the arena, checking out the men's field, a division that promises top competition.

One group of six contained Chris Bowman, the flashy U.S. skater who was a child actor in Hollywood (Little House on the Prairie) and has added solid skating (eight triples) to showmanship, and Grzegorz Filipowski of Poland, impressive in training here.

Next comes the strong Soviet entry of Alexandr Fadeev and Victor Petrenko and they dazzle. Fadeev won the world championship in '85, then encountered a series of injuries that restricted his freestyle programs. Healthy now, he knocks off triple jumps with precision, topped only by the taller Petrenko, who seems in the air almost non-stop through the 45 minutes.

Kurt Browning of Canada is in the next group but this is a rehearsal of the short program, which doesn't include the quadruple jump. Workouts for the Browning long program have been heavily attended because he's been knocking off quads with startling regularity.

Yesterday, though, Browning is off form and he falls six times on the landing of a triple axel. He stands by the boards, talking to coach Michael Jiranek while the second half of his music plays, then lands the jump on the third post-break try.

"Browning is just an incredible jumper," said Hamilton, who could bound on the blades a little himself.

"He has so much power that he's over-rotating on the axel and landing just a little past where he should land. He's not far from the power he needs for a quad."

The stock question

Because skaters don't go from the fringes to gold in one leap, even if they do quads non-stop, Browning would have to be happy with a third-place finish in his first run at the front ranks. Hamilton sees a Bowman-Browning battle for the bronze while the comrades corral the top two places.

"Fadeev was a world champ, Petrenko won a medal (bronze) in the '88 Olympics and that gives them an edge here," he said. "Of course, they have to skate well enough to get those spots but they both appear capable of doing it."

Earlier, Browning had charmed the world skating press with a laid-back interview that, of coerse, included what has become - and will be well into the future - the standard question for all Canadian competitors: What has the Ben Johnson scandal done to sports in your country?

There was no quick-quip retort from Browning on that one. A gap of a few seconds preceded a carefully conceived answer.

"Ben was so important to us - and maybe still is to many people - that it has been a very difficult time for many Canadians," Browning said.

"So it would be good if the skaters here could replace it with some good news. And a win by the Edmonton Oilers would help a lot, too, in the good news department."