Harding Wins Her Second Title : Figure skating: She and Kerrigan earn berths on U.S. Olympic team. Kwan, 13, and Zayak, 28, still find joy in defeat.

It was a remarkable night for the youngest competitor, 13-year-old Michelle Kwan, and the oldest, 28-year-old Elaine Zayak, but, in the end, the two female figure skaters the United States will send to Norway next month for the Winter Olympics are the ones who figured to go all along, Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.

While Kerrigan, victimized by an assault Thursday that forced her off the ice because of a bruised and swollen knee, waited for the waiver that would give her an Olympic berth, Harding had to skate for hers in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Joe Louis Arena.

She responded beautifully, landing all five triple jumps she attempted and getting first-place marks from all nine judges in Saturday night’s freestyle program to win her second national championship.

Almost before the computer registered Harding as the champion, the U.S. Figure Skating Assn.’s 45-member international committee took advantage of the rule that gives it the discretion to choose its Olympians regardless of the national championship results and voted unanimously that Kerrigan should be one.

Although Kerrigan will be required to prove her fitness for three international judges a week or two before the Winter Olympics’ Feb. 12 opening ceremony in Lillehammer, Norway, Mahlon Bradley, an orthopedist who treated her last week, said Saturday that she should be able to return to the ice within one week and begin jumping within two.

If she has healed, Kerrigan, 24, of Stoneham, Mass., will be making her second Olympic trip, as will Harding, 23, of Portland, Ore. Kerrigan was third in 1992, Harding fourth.

If Kerrigan has not recovered, the berth will belong to a Torrance teen-ager, Kwan, who, one year after defying her coach by taking a test that elevated her to figure skating’s senior level, finished second in the national championships.

Despite her size, 4 feet 11 and 88 pounds, she had the most technically challenging freestyle program. She was not quite up to it, landing four of the seven triple jumps she had planned and falling once. But five of the nine judges gave her second-place marks, and none placed her lower than third as she edged Nicole Bobek, a 16-year-old from Colorado Springs, Colo.

“I could have done better, but I’m happy with what I’ve done,” said Kwan, who last month won the world junior championship in her typically understated fashion.

Her coach, Frank Carroll, was ecstatic, saying: “We had no expectations. We just worked hard and all our dreams came true this year. It was a great, wonderful year.”

Carroll said that he has no objection to the selection of Kerrigan instead of Kwan to the Olympic team. Only the second time since 1924 that the Americans have had fewer than three women’s berths, they were restricted to two this year because of their failure to place a skater among the top five in the world in 1993.

“Nancy was skating the best I’ve seen her, and I think she would have won the competition,” Carroll said.

While on the subject of dreams coming true, Zayak was operating a failing delicatessen in Paramus, N.J., and earning even less money as an also-ran in professional skating competitions when she decided last year to take advantage of an International Skating Union rule that allowed her to regain her amateur status.

So, 12 years after she won the world championship, she came back to a brave new world, in which the most difficult jumps she landed her first time around were now the easiest for the modern skaters.

But she quickly caught up to most of the women, finishing fourth in Friday night’s technical program, and became the crowd favorite. She got a tremendous ovation from the 17,228 spectators even before she started skating Saturday night, causing her to cry.

“I didn’t expect that,” she said later after earning fourth place. “I thought, ‘Oh, no, what am I going to do now if I don’t skate well?’ ”

No problem. She was still in tears at the end, after landing three triple jumps, and the crowd was on its feet.

The ultimate triumph, however, belonged to Harding, who battled financial hardships to win the 1991 championship, then threatened to throw it away off of the ice.

And she has asthma, a condition that often leaves her struggling for breath.

But she persevered.

“I made it,” she said later, still coughing. “I’m the Tonya Harding that everyone always believes in.”