THE OLYMPICS / WINTER GAMES AT ALBERTVILLE : NOTES : The Two Brians Give Two Thumbs Down

Sitting together in the crowd during the men’s figure skating freestyle program Saturday night at the Olympic Ice Hall were the gold and silver medalists from the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary, Brian Boitano of the United States and Brian Orser of Canada.

Neither was particularly impressed by the quality of skating on a night when there were more spills than thrills. It was much different than four years ago, when Boitano had to skate a virtually flawless performance in order to beat Orser.

“I didn’t think I was at the Olympics,” Boitano said after the Unified Team’s Viktor Petrenko won the gold medal despite several mistakes, including a fall. “It was like I was in the Twilight Zone.”

Orser, who skated well in the freestyle program in both 1984 and 1988 and finished second both times, said: “It’s kind of hard to swallow. There’s no sour grapes here because I’m not in it anymore, but it’s bad for the sport, and for the TV audiences to see this. This is supposed to be a night of magic.”

Boitano campaigned to have International Skating Union rules changed so that he could return for another chance at a gold medal even though he is participating in professional competitions, but union president Olaf Poulsen of Norway led the resistance.

“I hope this sends a message to Olaf Poulsen,” Boitano said. “But who knows? Maybe I would have been one of the statistics out there tonight.”

Czechoslovakia’s Petr Barna made figure skating history by becoming the first person to land a quadruple jump in the Winter Olympics. But the rest of his freestyle performance was less than dazzling as he settled for the bronze medal.

“I did the quad, but after that it was like I had 100 kilograms on my back,” he said. “I was carrying that weight around the whole program.”

Paul Wylie is the Olympic figure skating silver medalist, but he might not compete in the World Championships next month at Oakland because he was not chosen to the three-man U.S. team by the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. after last month’s national championships.

Because Wylie, 27, had already announced before his second-place finish at the nationals that he will retire after this season, the USFSA decided that it would be better to give one of its promising younger skaters, Mark Mitchell of Hamden, Conn., international exposure in the World Championships.

Wylie made it clear Saturday night that he was not particularly pleased with that decision, but one of his coaches, Evy Scotvold, interrupted before the skater could elaborate.

“I think it’s a little inappropriate to talk about this now,” he said. “Just let us celebrate this right now.”

But it is possible that one or more positions on the team will come open.

Two-time national champion Todd Eldredge, who trains in San Diego, does not appear to have recovered from a back injury that forced him to withdraw from the national championships. After finishing third in the world last year, he was 10th here.

And current national champion Christopher Bowman, 24, of Van Nuys said that he might decide this week to retire after finishing with a flourish in his freestyle performance Saturday night to rise from seventh in Thursday night’s original program to fourth overall.

“I’ll decide when I get home,” he said. “I’ve been in the sport a long, long time. I’m looking forward to getting on with the rest of my life.”

Wylie will be remembered as one of the sport’s great stylists, but he has seldom competed well internationally because he has been unable to handle the pressure.

He was feeling it again Friday after finishing third in the original program the night before, placing him in medal contention.

So he paid a visit to a sports psychologist for the U.S. Olympic Committee.

“He said, ‘Give yourself a half hour to think about winning a medal, then put it out of your mind,’ ” Wylie said. “I was really anxious about it. I didn’t want to grab onto the medal too hard and then lose it.”