WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : Boitano, Dominant Among Pros, Is Now Ready for Amateurs

Proving again that other professionals are no match for him, Brian Boitano, the 1988 Winter Olympic men’s figure skating champion, is near a decision that would allow him to test himself against the sport’s real pros--the amateurs.

Using highly technical programs that he called “steppingstones to the 1994 U.S. (amateur) nationals,” Boitano won the men’s title Saturday night in the DuraSoft World Professional Figure Skating Championships at Landover, Md.

Since turning professional in 1988, he has entered 10 competitions and won them all. He will try to extend his record to 11-0 Thursday night at the Forum in the DuraSoft Challenge of Champions against 1992 Olympic champion Viktor Petrenko, plus Paul Wylie and Brian Orser.

Searching for a new challenge, or, actually, an old one, Boitano said last week that he is 90% certain that he will apply for reinstatement as an amateur so that he can be eligible for the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, Norway.

Very few others appear to have made up their minds whether to take advantage of the new International Skating Union rule that allows skaters one opportunity during their professional careers to regain amateur eligibility. The deadline for those who want to compete in 1994 is April 1.

Among the other Olympic or World Championship medalists who have said they are considering the option are Kristi Yamaguchi, Katarina Witt, Scott Hamilton, Petrenko, Orser, Petr Barna, Christopher Bowman, Jill Trenary, Elizabeth Manley, Denise Biellmann, the dance teams of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean and Natalia Bestemianova and Andrei Bukin and the pairs team of Natalia Mishkutenok and Artur Dmitriev.

“It’s the fashion among skaters to talk about it now,” said Boitano, who predicted that most will ultimately decide against returning to the more demanding amateur competitions.

It is no surprise that Boitano, 29, is leaning the other way, considering that he pushed so hard for the change that it is known unofficially as the “Boitano Rule.”

“All my hopes and dreams came true when I won the gold medal in Calgary,” he said. “No one can ever take that away from me. But, now, my priorities have changed. If I come back, I won’t be doing it for the gold medal. I’ll be doing it because I want to skate at the highest level again, and that’s the right reason.

“As long as I’m physically in good shape, I want to keep pushing myself. When I’m 50, I don’t want to look back and say, ‘I should have done it when I could.’ ”

Add skating: Yamaguchi, the 1992 Olympic women’s champion, won in her professional debut at Landover. She also will compete Thursday night at the Forum against Biellmann, Trenary and Rosalynn Sumners. . . . For the third consecutive year, Lisa Ervin of Lakewood, Ohio, was runner-up in the world junior championships at Seoul. Carolyn Song of Fullerton was 19th. Nicole and Gregory Sciarrotta of Costa Mesa were fifth in pairs. . . . The U.S. Figure Skating Assn.’s pro-am last month at Hershey, Pa., was such a critical success that it is considering organizing another one in April, perhaps in Los Angeles.

What’s in a name? U.S. track and field officials will find out. After confusing us for years as The Athletics Congress, they have changed the name of their federation to USA Track & Field. Spokesman Pete Cava said they have gotten all sorts of inquires throughout the years about their purpose, including some from prospective participants on American Gladiators. For less apparent reasons, the U.S. Gymnastics Federation has changed its name to USA Gymnastics.

The world record-holder in the decathlon, Dan O’Brien, will meet the Olympic champion, Robert Zmelik of Czechoslovakia, in a series of three-event competitions this winter at indoor meets, including the Sunkist on Feb. 20 at the Sports Arena.

O’Brien wasn’t interested in the proposal to add two-time Olympic heptathlon champion Jackie Joyner-Kersee to the mix, particularly since her two best events, the high hurdles and the long jump, are included, along with the shotput, in his competitions against Zmelik.

“I thought at first that it was a little silly,” O’Brien said. “But then I realized that--with a little bit of a handicap, not much--she’d probably beat me.”

Who would have thought that the U.S. bobsled team would miss Herschel Walker no more than the Minnesota Vikings?

Through the first half of the World Cup season, driver Brian Shimer of Naples, Fla., leads both the overall and the four-man standings. He already has become the first U.S. driver to win three consecutive races, including a recent victory over former Olympic and world champion Wolfgang Hoppe on the former East German’s home track at Altenberg. Germany.

U.S. bobsled officials say it is no coincidence that Hoppe’s predecessor as East Germany’s--and the world’s--No. 1 driver, Meinhard Nehmer, is now coaching the U.S. team.

The bobsled track for the 1984 Winter Olympics at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, is now being used as an artillery position for Serbian guerrillas.

In response to criticism from Norwegians that International Olympic Committee members live like royalty--which some of them are--while athletes do not during the Games, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said that the committee would stay in the athletes’ village during the Winter Games at Lillehammer.

But the organizing committee responded that it would be too expensive to build additional accommodations within the village for the members and insisted that they remain in their deluxe hotel. Word is that some members were not particularly disappointed.