Pluses Since ’88 Outweigh Minuses : Figure skating: The elimination of compulsory figures will result in more challenging performances.

There will be no intense on-ice rivalries, such as those that produced “the Battle of the Brians” between the United States’ Boitano and Canada’s Orser and “the Battle of the Carmens” between Germany’s Katarina Witt and the United States’ Debi Thomas.

There will be no Jutta Mueller, who coached East Germans, including Witt in 1984 and 1988, to women’s championships in the last three Olympics. She now finds her career on ice, a victim of the merged sports systems in unified Germany.

There will be no Carlo Fassi, who coached Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, John Curry and Robin Cousins to gold medals, but now is attempting to revive the sport in his native Italy.

But not all the changes in figure skating since the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary have been for the worse.

For instance, there will be no compulsory figures, which too often allowed men and women in singles to build insurmountable leads before the real skating began. With all the emphasis now on their two freestyle programs, skaters at Albertville will be the most athletic in the sport’s history.

For the first time in the Olympics, audiences probably will see quadruple jumps from the men and triple axels from the women. One woman, France’s Surya Bonaly, plans to attempt a quadruple jump.

How the judges respond will play a large role in determining the sport’s direction. Will they reward those skaters who achieve the right balance between athleticism and artistry? Or will figure skating become a slam-dunk contest?

MEN

If healthy, Canada’s Kurt Browning, the Commonwealth of Independent States’ Viktor Petrenko and the United States’ Todd Eldredge would be favored to duplicate their 1-2-3 finish at last year’s World Championships.

But all three have suffered from back injuries. Browning, a three-time world champion, and Eldredge, a two-time U.S. champion who trains in San Diego, withdrew from their national championships in January. Petrenko, the bronze medalist in 1988, should have withdrawn from his, finishing third.

They are expected to skate at Albertville, but one or more of them could be crowded off the medals stand by European champion Petr Barna of Czechoslovakia, Viacheslav Zagorodniuk or Alexi Urmanov of the CIS or Christopher Bowman of Van Nuys.

Amid rumors of drug use and an erratic lifestyle, Bowman ignored the distractions and won his second national championship this year. His conservative freestyle program, belying his “Bowman the Showman” reputation, was good enough to win only because of Eldredge’s absence. But Bowman’s coach, John Nicks of Costa Mesa, promised more excitement in the Olympics.

WOMEN

The four years after the 1988 Winter Games were supposed to belong to Japan’s Midori Ito. Although she finished fifth at Calgary, her exuberance and energy in the freestyle program earned her high marks from the judges and spectators.

She did not disappoint the next year, when she became the first woman to land a triple axel jump en route to the world championship. But, suffering from injuries and nerves, she finished second in the world in 1990 and fourth last year behind three Americans--Kristi Yamaguchi of Fremont, Calif., Tonya Harding of Portland, Ore., and Nancy Kerrigan of Stoneham, Mass.

Ito remains the favorite because of her unparalleled mastery of the jumps, but Yamaguchi, the reigning world and national champion, is superior in combining the artistic and athletic elements. If both skate well, the judges will have to make a difficult decision. The lady or the tiger?

A wild card, in every sense, is Harding. A drag-racing, roller-blading dervish, she became the second woman to land a triple axel and upset Yamaguchi to win the 1990 national championship. Suffering from an ankle injury, she finished third this year. But if healthy at Albertville, she is capable of winning.

The crowd favorite will be France’s Bonaly, a two-time European champion who finished fifth in the world last year. A former gymnast, she will try anything, including a quadruple jump that only three men have ever landed. But, as Kerrigan’s coach, Evy Scotvold, says, “She needs to learn how to skate.”

PAIRS

By any other name, the Russians are still the best. Skating for the Soviet Union, Russian pairs have won every Olympic gold medal since 1964. Skating for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Russians are expected to win again this year.

With the retirement in 1990 of defending champions Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, the couple of the hour is Natalia Mishkutienok and Artur Dmitriev. They lack the flair of Gordeeva and Grinkov, but their peerless death spiral is a dagger in the hearts of their competitors.

Second in the world in 1990 and 1991, Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler of Canada should find a place on the medals stand along with another Russian pair, Elena Bechke and Denis Petrov.

Calla Urbanski, a 31-year-old waitress from Skokie, Ill., and Rocky Marval, a 26-year-old trucking company president from New Egypt, N.J., became the working-class heroes when they won the national championship this year.

International judges might prefer the May-September pairing of 15-year-old Natasha Kuchiki of Canoga Park and 28-year-old Todd Sand of Costa Mesa, who finished a surprising third in the world last year.

DANCE

Three of the four times that dance has been contested at the Olympics, Soviet skaters won. The one time they did not was in 1984, when the gold medal went to Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Great Britain.

Dean has returned as choreographer to Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay. He also is married to Isabelle. The French-Canadians, who compete for France because their mother is from there, won the spectators’ hearts at Calgary but finished eighth in the judges’ eyes. Since then, they also have won over the judges, winning the world championship last year.

If they fail to win at Albertville, and it is possible because of a groin injury to Paul that prevented them from competing in the European championships in January, former Soviets Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko are again gold-medalists in waiting. They won the silver in 1988.

April Sargent-Thomas of Ogdensburg, N.Y., should receive some sort of medal simply for being in the Olympics. Less than three weeks after undergoing emergency surgery for a ruptured ovarian cyst, she and her partner, Russ Witherby of Cincinnati, won the national championship after three consecutive years as runners-up.