The figure skating outlook for next month's Olympics is fuzzy.
The European Figure Skating Championships ended Saturday and its results, combined with the American and Canadian championship winners, created an unclear picture for the Lillehammer Games.Returning pros and gold medalists - some considered virtual cinches for Olympic victories - and world champions from last year lost. Others posted narrow victories.
At the European meet, world champion Oksana Baiul lost to Surya Bonaly in the women's event. With the recent attack on Nancy Kerrigan and its effect both on her and Tonya Harding, the Olympic women's competition became wide open.
Katarina Witt, the two-time gold medalist, made a mistake on a double axel in the technical program and struggled to qualify for the Olympics on the German team. She succeeded, but finished eighth and isn't likely to be a factor at the Olympics.
The women are doing five and six triple jumps now and it was technique over artistry at the Europeans.
Baiul was graceful, both on the ice and in defeat.
"It is not important to be always first," Baiul said. "At this moment, Surya was better."
The 16-year-old Ukrainian will work on her jumping prior to the Games. Bonaly used a triple salchow-triple toe loop combination to overcome Baiul's artistic ability and gain her fourth consecutive European title.
Viktor Petrenko, the 1992 Olympic champion, took the European men's title for the third time with a less than stellar performance in the long program. He blamed it on an extra round of qualifications caused by the large field. He will not have that problem at the Olympics, where there will be a 30-skater limit.
"This time was good enough," Petrenko said. When asked about his toughest competition, he answered, "Me."
Brian Boitano, the 1988 gold medalist, was expected to be the men's favorite.
However, Boitano lost at the U.S. nationals to Scott Davis. Then, world champion Kurt Browning was beaten at the Canadian championships.
Petrenko won't have to deal with one top competitor from his own team. Ukraine is allowed only one skater at the Olympics, and Viacheslav Zagorodniuk, the European runner-up, will not compete at the Olympics.
The ice dance event was expected to produce an easy victory for Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, the 1984 gold medalists and renowned for their "Bolero" at Sarajevo, which earned them all 6.0s for artistic impression.
However, they had to scramble to win the ice dance event, edging Russians Oksana Gritschuk and Evgeni Platov, surprise winners of the free dance, and Maya Usova and Aleksandr Zhulin, last year's world champions.
The ice dance was one of the closest finishes in a major event, with each couple winning a portion of the competition. Dean has promised changes in the free dance, after the technical aspect of it failed to provide the excitement that Gritschuk and Platov had in their playful rock 'n roll routine.
"As much as everyone is saying that the men's competition is going to be one of the best ever, I think the dance is going to be up there because it is changing all the time," Dean said. "Whatever happened here is not representative of what will happen next."
The pairs event had a head-to-head confrontation between the gold medalists of the past two Olympics. Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov were perhaps the most impressive of the entire field of returning pros, possibly because they are the youngest.
After winning the 1988 Olympic pairs title, they turned pro.
Gordeeva is only 22, but her maturity on the ice is remarkable. Although Natalia Mishkutienok and Artur Dmitriev, the 1992 gold mealists, had a problem with the short program, it would have been tough to beat Gordeeva-Grinkov.
Canadians Lloyd Eisler and Isabelle Brasseur were the only 1993 world champions to win in either their nationals or at the European meet.
