WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : What Is at the Bottom of Bobsled Trials?

Was the bottom line in the U.S. bobsled controversy precisely that, the bottom line?

Pushers who were forced to compete earlier this month in a second set of trials to regain their seats in sleds for the Winter Olympics at Albertville, France, claim some U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation officials were motivated by financial reasons in their efforts to have Herschel Walker, Edwin Moses and Willie Gault selected to the team.

They apparently have no evidence to support their allegations, but it did look suspicious when McDonald’s entered into a $250,000 sponsorship agreement with the federation and then withdrew after paying only $30,000 when Moses and Gault failed to make the team.

One thing clear is that Walker, Moses, Gault and another NFL player, Greg Harrell, were operating under a set of rules established by one faction of the federation during the original trials last summer, while everyone else was operating under a different set of rules established by another faction. When the latter faction prevailed, only Walker made the team.

After extensive legal maneuvering by Moses, Gault and Harrell, the courts had little choice but to order the federation to start over. Harrell made the team, Gault did not, and Moses decided to concentrate on hurdling less abstract barriers.

The big winner? McDonald’s, which escaped early from a runaway sled.

Do you believe in miracles? Not this time.

It might be a little early to write off the U.S. ice hockey team’s chances of winning a gold medal, or a medal of any hue for that matter, considering it does not start play in the Winter Olympics until Feb. 9 at Meribel, France, against Italy.

Then again, it might not be. Entering a pre-Olympic tournament today in France, the team has a 17-38-1 exhibition record, including 4-13-3 against NHL teams; a roster that was evolving and revolving until last week; and a coach, Dave Peterson, who does not get any respect, even from some of his players.

In the most recent edition of Sports Illustrated, one team member says of playing for Peterson: “It’s been a little disappointing because a lot of us put off professional careers to play in the Olympics. I expected to learn a ton, and I haven’t.”

Behind the wheel of a team with 12 future NHL players in 1988 at the Calgary Olympics, Peterson drove it off a cliff. The United States finished seventh and missed the medal round.

The political turmoil and economic hardships do not seem to have affected Soviet figure skaters, who swept the medals in the pairs and dance competitions in last week’s European Championships at Lausanne, Switzerland.

According to former gold medalist Christopher Dean, of Great Britain’s Torville and Dean, dance champions Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko would have been difficult to beat even if the defending world champions, France’s Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay, had not withdrawn because of a groin injury to Paul. Dean’s analysis is significant because he is the Duchesnays’ choreographer and Isabelle’s husband.

By the end of last week, the Duchesnays were back on the ice. Isabelle said she is “2,000%” sure they will compete in the Olympics at Albertville, where they are certain to be crowd favorites.

For the second straight year, France’s Surya Bonaly won the women’s competition at the European Championships. She has scores of critics who do not believe the former gymnast has the style to be a figure skating champion, but Bonaly, 18, deserves credit for keeping her mind on the competition while her mother and her coach are openly feuding.

“With the Olympics in France, she is putting a lot of pressure on her kid,” said Bonaly’s coach, Didier Gailhaguet, acknowledging he has considered quitting because of interference from the mother. “Sometimes too much pressure. It is stupid. It doesn’t really help her. It has been a problem the last two years.”

Asked for an example of the pressure applied by Suzanne Bonaly, Gailhaguet said the mother tells Surya, “Children are starving in Africa, so you have to do well.”

Quote of the Week: “I’m a cross between Beverly Hills 90210 and the Addams Family,” said U.S. figure skating champion Christopher Bowman.

It did not take long for the other skate to fall. Mark Mitchell of Hamden, Conn., did not agree with the judges that he should have finished third instead of second in the U.S. figure skating championships two weeks ago at Orlando, Fla. But he seemed to accept his selection by the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. as an alternate to the three-man Olympic team when two-time national champion Todd Eldredge was granted an injury waiver.

That was before Eldredge received an extension last week that gave him until Feb. 7 to prove that he is fit. The USFSA originally believed it would have to know by last Friday whether he had sufficiently recovered from the back injury that caused him to withdraw from the nationals.

“I’ve had it with them,” Mitchell said of the USFSA in an interview with the Hartford Courant. “I’m sick of being nice. I’m sick of all of it.”

Mitchell, 23, has had a frustrating career. In 1990, he finished third in the national championships but was not selected for the team that went to the World Championships because Christopher Bowman had received an injury waiver. Last year, Mitchell again just missed going to the World Championships with a fourth-place finish at the nationals, although some observers thought he skated well enough to finish second or third.

“I love to skate, I know that,” Mitchell said. “But the last two years, I’ve lost a lot of faith in the judging, in the sport. I see young kids learning to skate, and I want to tell them, ‘Don’t do it . . . it’s not fair what they can do to you emotionally.’ ”

As a consolation, Mitchell was selected to compete in the World Championships in March at Oakland. But he said that might be his last competitive appearance.

“In one sense, I’ve had enough of this,” he said. “How many times can I keep going out there and not getting anything for it?”

World Scene Notes

When Latvia competes in its first Winter Olympics this year, one of its physicians will be Karlis Ullis, a Latvian-American who is a UCLA sports medicine doctor. . . . Patricia Neske, who finished third in the women’s competition at the European figure skating championships last week, is from Harbor City. She competes for Germany. Eleventh place went to a former U.S. junior champion from Minnesota, Alice Sue Claeys, who skates for Belgium.

The International Amateur Athletic Federation’s decision last week to postpone South Africa’s readmittance into international track and field competition until the sport’s three governing bodies in that country unite virtually guarantees that Zola Budd will not participate in the Sunkist Invitational in February at the Sports Arena. She and her agent had expressed interest.

The CONCACAF soccer tournament, a success at the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl last year, probably will return to Los Angeles in 1993, although some of the games might be split with another city, perhaps Dallas. Two South American teams, Brazil and Argentina, are expected to be invited to join the North and Central American and Caribbean teams.