Canadian Pair Nearly Scores Upset

It seemed as if all the three Soviet figure skating pairs had to do Wednesday night in the final phase of their competition was show up at the Halifax Metro Centre to collect their World Championship medals. The only question was which pairs would win which medals.

But the crowd-pleasing Canadian pair of Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, who finished third in their own national championships last month, came within one judge’s scores of upsetting the defending champions, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, in the freestyle program and surprised even themselves by winning a silver medal.

Such is the state of Soviet pairs skating that they were disappointed with a first, a third and a fourth. Gordeeva and Grinkov, four-time world champions and 1988 Winter Olympic gold medalists, gave the Soviets their 23rd pairs world championship in the last 26 years.

There was a question, however, in all but the judge’s minds about whether Gordeeva and Grinkov were the best Soviet pair. Natalia Mishkutenok and Artur Dmitriev, the third-place team, did not have programs that were as technically challenging as those of Gordeeva and Grinkov, but the skaters were more innovative and made fewer mistakes.

Gordeeva seems less enthralled, and enthralling, than she did two years ago at the Winter Olympics. Their coach, Stanislav Leonovich, said it only appears so because she has grown eight inches to 5-4.

But Gordeeva, 18, admitted last month at the European championships that she is losing her motivation.

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Notes

U.S. champions Kristi Yamaguchi of Fremont, Calif. and Rudi Galindo of San Jose finished fifth, the same as last year. Natasha Kuchiki of Canoga Park and Todd Sand of Thousand Oaks were 11th. Sharon Carz of Playa del Rey and Doug Williams of Los Angeles were 13th.