Sand and Kuchiki Bow Out After Setback : Figure skating: Lingering injury to Thousand Oaks competitor prevents pair from competing.

As the nation’s top-ranked figure-skating pair, Todd Sand and Natasha Kuchiki figured to draw at least modest media attention at the U.S. Olympic Festival.

They did not plan on being in street clothes during the interviews.

As he talked after the conclusion of the pairs’ original program Saturday, Sand tilted noticeably on his chair.

A muscle strain near the base of his spine made sitting only slightly less painful than skating.

Sand, 26, from Thousand Oaks, and Kuchiki, 13, from Canoga Park, confirmed early Saturday that Sand’s back injury--officially a lower lumbar strain--made it impossible for them to compete.

A 15-minute practice before the start of the competition drove the point home.

“We wanted to come to the festival so we kept skating and working hard--as hard as I could work with the injury,” Sand said. “I just couldn’t do it.”

The injury, which Sand said had developed gradually, first became noticeable about a month ago. By skating at a seminar in Switzerland two weeks ago he only aggravated matters.

Sand and Kuchiki worked out together for only a short time Thursday and Sand spent all of Friday undergoing physical therapy in a last-ditch effort to ease the pain of the back spasms.

“It hurts all the way down to my knees,” he said. “I’ve never experienced anything so painful.

“I just kept hoping the spasming would stop or at least calm down enough for us to compete.”

The couple remain hopeful that the hurt of not competing will not be surpassed by a double dose of heartache later this month.

The Goodwill Games in Seattle begin July 20, which means the pair is going to miss key training time.

Sand has been told to stay off skates for at least a week.

The decision not to perform Saturday was made by Sand, but Kuchiki said she agreed totally.

“I’d rather be really good for the Goodwill Games instead of (Sand’s) being more injured for pushing it,” she said.

The festival was to mark the debut of the couple’s new long program to the music from the ballet “Prince Igor.”

“One of the main things we wanted to do was try out the new program before the Goodwill Games,” Sand said. “But we’ll be all right. We were in good shape before the injury and I don’t think we’re going to lose that.”

Sand and Kuchiki rose to national prominence with a second-place finish at the U. S. Figure Skating Championships in Salt Lake City in February. They had become a pairs team only eight months earlier.

Kuchiki had been teamed with Richard Alexander of Simi Valley before splitting up for “personal reasons.”

Sand, as luck would have it, was searching for a new partner after being paired with Lori Blasko of Thousand Oaks for a number of years.

Both skaters competed for the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club, but they had different coaches and trained at different rinks.

“Once we started skating together, everything just clicked,” Sand said.

Their career together received a boost in May when Kristi Yamaguchi and Rudi Galindo, the reigning U. S. champions, broke up to pursue singles careers.

That left Kuchiki and Sand to inherit the top spot. The festival, they had hoped, would provide an opportunity to more firmly establish themselves as America’s best.

“I was looking forward to it,” Sand said. “But I need to be smart about it, too.”

Alexander has a new partner, but his luck was only slightly better than that of Kuchiki.

Alexander and Tristen Vega of Torrance were the first pairs team to perform its original program.

Skating first traditionally is a bad draw and it contributed to a middle-of-the-pack finish Saturday.

Alexander, 20, and Vega, 16, are in fifth place among 11 teams heading into today’s free-skating program.

Earlier this year, in only their second competition together, Alexander and Vega won the U. S. junior pairs championship.

In that performance, Alexander and Vega overcame the first draw.

Jennifer Heurlin and John Frederiksen, both from Arlington Heights, Ill., were in first place after Saturday’s competition. Next were Angela Denewith, of Westland, Mich., and John Denton, of Morro Bay. Calla Urbanski and Mark Naylor, the No. 2-rated U.S. pairs team, were third.