FIGURE SKATING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS : CIS Couples Put Medals on Ice Early

If figure skating followers at the Oakland Coliseum Arena were hoping to see something other than the routine on the opening day of the World Championships, they had to look somewhere other than the ice.

In the first phases of competition Wednesday, skaters from the Commonwealth of Independent States, formerly the Soviet Union, finished first, second and third in ice dancing and first in pairs.

That was more or less predictable. In both disciplines, the gold medalists from last month’s Winter Olympics, Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko in dance and Natalia Mishkutionok and Artur Dmitriev in pairs, are leading.

It was off the ice, in news conferences, is where there were surprises.

Former U.S. champion Tonya Harding arrived here Wednesday by car from her Portland, Ore., home with a new coach, new original and freestyle programs and a new name since finishing fourth in the Olympics.

Revealing that she has dropped ZZ Top from her musical accompaniment and replaced it with, naturally, “Moon River,” she also said that she wants to be known by her married name of Harding-Gillooly, a reversal of her previous preference.

She also has eliminated her trademark jump, the triple axel, from Saturday’s original program, and, as for reports that she was armed with a baseball bat during a recent argument with another motorist, she said: “That got blown way out of proportion, and, anyway, it was a Wiffle Ball bat.”

Then there was Christopher Bowman, the two-time U.S. champion from Van Nuys, who, on the eve of today’s start of the men’s competition, denied reports that he has decided to retire after this week, even though he inspired them after his fourth-place finish in the Olympics when he said that it was time for him to “move on.”

“These (reports) are really fallacies,” he said Wednesday.

Perhaps more surprised than anyone to hear that Bowman, 24, might remain in the sport,his coach, John Nicks of Costa Mesa, said: “Are you telling me we’re going to have more time together?”

Bowman smiled sheepishly. “Sorry,” he said.

Skating Notes

Entering the final phase of the pairs competition, tonight’s freestyle program, former U.S. champions Natasha Kuchiki of Canoga Park and Todd Sand of Costa Mesa are fifth. Reigning national champions Calla Urbanski of Skokie, Ill., and Rocky Marval of New Egypt, N.J., are seventh. Jenni Meno of Westlake, Ohio, and Scott Wendland of Costa Mesa are ninth.