Canadian Team Mixes Some More Gold With Ice

PRAGUE, March 11 - Flags with big maple leafs flapped everywhere. Down jackets were left open to the cold night air. Consonants were pronounced hard, and loud.

Little Canada, a contingent of loyal supporters, sprang today from Sports Hall here, where Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko continued their country's early dominance at the world figure skating championships.

Browning took the gold medal in the men's singles, dressed nattily in waiter's jacket and bow tie, portraying Rick from the movie "Casablanca" for his interpretive long program. Browning was a complete actor-athlete, scoring higher on his artistic marks than on his technical scores. Stojko, won the silver medal by simply blasting away the competition was a spectacular series of seven triple jumps and speedy spins to earn high technical marks.

"For many years in Canada, it's been me against Kurt," Stojko said. "Now, it's the whole world for us. Hopefully, we'll get one and two at the Olympics next year."

The Canadians, understandably, were jubilant. They had unseated the Russians in the pairs event on Wednesday with the victory of Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler. Now, they had walked off with a singles crown, heading into the straightaway for the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, Norway.

The United States team, however, was dumbfounded. Mark Mitchell, skating next to last, and knowing exactly what he needed from his performance, figured to claim at least a bronze medal. But early in his program, he landed badly on a triple axel and reduced a triple flip to a double. All the confidence he had gained in recent days was gone. and he finished a forlorn fourth behind Aleksei Urmanov of Russia.

"I can't let four and a half minutes overshadow the whole week," said Mitchell, who was second to Browning after the technical program on Wednesday. "I skated well here. But the memories of the nationals seemed to haunt me. They came back."

Then in Phoenix, he skated conservatively and failed to hold off Scott Davis for the United States title. Unfortunately tonight, his nervous performances this week did nothing for the greater good of the American team. Davis finished in sixth place. Without a medalist in this event, the United States earned only two sponts in the men's competition next year at the Olympics. One of these positions figures to go to Brian Boitano, the professional who is about to return to the eligible ranks.

"Who's to say?" said Davis. "Maybe Mark and I will both beat Boitano."

That seemed extremely unlikely tonight in Prague, where only Browning and Stojko, the 20-year-old jumping jack, were skating at Boitano's level. If Viktor Petrenko of Ukraine, the Albertville gold medalist, returns as expected to the Olympic ranks, the 1994 Games could be a compelling four-way battle.

For now, Browning is the world champion, after a long program that included five triple jumps, one bad landing and a somewhat spunky impression of Humphrey Bogart. Browning has uncanny timing, not all of it good. He has won the world championships four times, yet he fell victim to a back injury at the time of the Albertville Games. Instead of peaking, he finished sixth in France.

Browning, who is 26 years old, has worked hard to improve his artistic level in recent months, in order to compete with the incoming professionals. Boitano is a subject that Browning treats with some delicacy these days.

"Looking ahead five years down the road," said Browning, "I think Brian coming back now and the sport opening up is going to be wonderful. It's just that right now there are some skaters losing spots and being pushed aside."

The Americans were pushed aside again tonight in another competition, ice dancing. It appeared the United States would earn only one Olympic spot in that competition, because Renee Roca and Gorsha Sur remained mired in 11th place after the original dance program, unable to fathom the judges who find their most sparkling routines ordinary. If they do not finish at least 10th on Friday after the free dance, a second Olympic spot will be lost to the Americans.

This was hardly the Canadians' concern. There was celebrating to be done by the large contingent ofspecatators and even a small political speech to be made. Otto Jelinek, the former pairs champion and the Revenue Minister of Canada, is reported to be interested in running for the Prime Minister post this year. There he was, just inside the doorway, talking to an ever-growing huddle of news media and Canadian fans.

"Yesterday, when we won the pairs, I almost cried," Jelinek said. "Today, I was even worse."

There was no judges around to give Jelinek a score, but he earned high marks from the voters of Little Canada.