FIGURE SKATING / WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS : Judges Miss the Point, Browning Places Third

Although figure skating’s World Championships formally opened Wednesday at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, connoisseurs of the sport know that no competition truly begins until the first scoring controversy.

That usually does not take more than 24 hours, and these championships have proved no exception as some of the judges Thursday invited skepticism about their point of view or, at the least, their vision.

The controversy occurred in the men’s competition, as it did in the recent Winter Olympics in France, where experts disagreed over whether Ukranian Viktor Petrenko should have won the gold medal over the United States’ Paul Wylie. But that at least was debatable.

There was no question here Thursday that Petrenko and Czechoslovakia’s Petr Barna, the Olympic bronze medalist, earned the scores that gave them the first two positions after the original program, which accounts for one-third of a final score that will be determined in today’s freestyle program.

There also was no question that Canada’s Kurt Browning, a three-time world champion, did not earn the scores that gave him third place. But four of the nine judges failed to deduct the recommended five-tenths of a point from his technical score even though he failed to perform one of the required elements.

One of the judges, Jane Garden, even awarded him a 5.9 on a 6.0 scale for his required elements.

Guess her home country. Did you say Canada?

The referee, Germany’s Juerg Wilhelm, said that he had not spoken to any of the judges.

“This is not like gymnastics, where the referee can correct scores,” he said.

But asked whether he saw Browning turn a triple lutz into a double, thus leaving him without one of the triple jumps required, Wilhelm said: “Yes, absolutely. But the judges must see it.”

Said two-time U.S. champion Todd Eldredge: “I guess they didn’t see it. Or chose not to see it. When you’re a three-time world champion, that helps a little.”

At least two other skaters, Canada’s Elvis Stojko and Christopher Bowman of Van Nuys, would have finished ahead of Browning if he had received the deduction recommended by the ISU. They are fourth and fifth, respectively.