Five-Ring Coverage : CBS SHOWS MAJOR EVENTS DURING PRIME TIME; TNT ALSO HAS THE DAYTIME COVERED

If it seems like only two years ago that we were setting our schedules, or our VCRs, for Winter Olympic viewing, that’s because it was in February, 1992, that athletes from throughout the world gathered in France’s Savoy region for the XVI Winter Games.

As a result of the International Olympic Committee’s decision to move the Winter Games out of the same calendar year as the Summer Games, we had to wait only two years instead of the usual four for the next sequel, the XVII Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

The change was inspired by U.S. television network executives, who complained they did not have the financial wherewithal to bid for two Olympics in the same year.

But, in this particular case, the winners are the athletes, who had to train for only an additional 48 months before competing in another Games. Many say they would have retired if their next opportunity had not come until 1996.

Also, rule revisions in figure skating have allowed other well-known names from past Olympics to return. CBS, which paid $295 million for the broadcast rights, hopes that familiarity breeds ratings for its prime-time coverage. TNT will air daytime coverage of selected events.

Following is a glance at the major stories CBS will be following in each sport (for broadcast times, see schedule Page 7) :

Figure Skating

Katarina Witt. Brian Boitano. Viktor Petrenko. Torvill and Dean. Gordeeva and Grinkov.

The theme was going to revolve around former gold medalists who took advantage of a new rule that allowed them to renounce their professional past and return to serious competition.

That was before figure skating hit the front pages with stories of bodyguards, hit men, strange estranged husbands and jealous rivals as someone tried to ice America’s ice princess, Nancy Kerrigan.

All they got was her knee, which, while damaged enough to prevent her from defending her national championship last month, appeared at press time to have sufficiently recovered for her to skate in Norway. Less certain was whether Tonya Harding, who inherited the national championship, would be implicated in the assault and, if so, whether it would cost her the Olympic berth.

In any case, the Kerrigan-Harding affair seems certain to overshadow the other women competitors, including Germany’s Witt, a two-time gold medalist returning for one more chance for glory, Ukranian orphan Oksana Baiul, who won the world championship last year at age 15, and France’s back-flipping former gymnast, Surya Bonaly.

In the men’s competition, all the drama will be on the ice. The last two Olympic champions, the United States’ Boitano from 1988 and Ukraine’s Petrenko from 1992, take on four-time world champion Kurt Browning of Canada and a couple of upstarts, Scott Davis of the United States and Elvis Stojko of Canada.

The pairs competition seems a lock for the 1988 gold medalists, Russians Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov. But Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Great Britain, who won the dance gold medal in 1984 with their memorable “Bolero,” have not adjusted as well in their comeback and appear vulnerable to a couple of Russian teams, who had to move into separate rinks on separate continents after a married partner from one team started waltzing off the ice with a member of the other team. Figure skating action, it’s fan-tastic!

Speedskating

Can Bonnie Blair do it again? Can Dan Jansen do it?

Blair, who has won three gold medals and a bronze in the last two Games, can become the most decorated U.S. woman Olympian with a medal in Norway. That does not figure to be much of a hurdle for her as she is entered in three events and figures to be favored in two.

More compelling is the challenge awaiting her teammate, Kristen Talbot, who earned a berth on the Olympic team and, two days later, donated bone marrow as a potential life-saving gift for her brother, who was diagnosed in December with aplastic anemia.

Talbot would consider her Games successful if she finishes in the top 15. But she says her most inspirational battle cry is reserved for her brother. “Go white count!”

The United States’ best hope on the short track again is Cathy Turner, who gave up her singing career--”Sexy, Kinky Tomboy” was her most successful single--to win a gold medal and a silver in 1992. She took a break from competition last year, becoming the first speedskater to tour with the Ice Capades.

On the morning Jansen was to skate in the 500 meters in the 1988 Winter Games, he learned that his sister, Jane, had died after a long bout with leukemia. In one of the most heartbreaking chapters of U.S. Olympic history, he skated that afternoon and fell, then returned days later in another event and fell again.

Back in the Olympics four years later in Albertville, again as a medal contender, he finished fourth in one race and 26th in another. Instead of giving up, he persevered and since has established himself as the sport’s fastest man, a prohibitive favorite to win the 500 and among the favorites in the 1,000.

He says he is more mature now, having gained a new perspective on life by the birth eight months ago of his first child, a daughter named Jane.

Alpine Skiing

After winning gold medals in the slalom and giant slalom in 1988, Italy’s Alberto Tomba, the self-proclaimed “messiah of skiing,” was so confident of duplicating the feat four years later that he renamed the site of the Games “Alberto-ville.”

He did, however, make one concession to age. “I used to have a wild time with three women until 5 a.m.,” he said. “In the Olympic village, I will live it up with five women until 3 a.m.”

Perhaps he had it right the first time because he repeated only in the giant slalom, settling for silver in the slalom. Or perhaps he has it right now that he is committed to one woman, a former Miss Italy. He, for a change, is making no predictions, but he is among the favorites in the giant slalom.

U.S. skiers can match neither the talent nor the flamboyance of Tomba, although Picabo (Peek-a-boo) Street comes close in the latter category.

Her parents are former hippies who helped found the small village of Triumph, Idaho, where their daughter was known as “Little Girl” until she was 3-years old. Her parents finally gave her the name of a nearby trout stream, which was named for a Native American word meaning “shiny waters.”

A silver medalist in the combined event in last year’s World Championships, she likes her name except when she orders pizza. “I just say my name is Jane,” she says.

Nordic Skiing

For Norwegians, the glamour of alpine skiing’s “White Circus” is for the dilettantes of Austria and Switzerland. Real skiing is cross-country, the longer and more demanding the course the better.

In recent years, Norwegians have become intrigued by their new alpine stars, the Flying Vikings. But their hero is Vegard Ulvang, who won three gold medals and a silver in 1992 in cross-country skiing but is even more admired as an explorer and adventurer whose goal is to climb the highest peaks and traverse the longest rivers on each continent.

Tragedy touched Ulvang last year, when his brother disappeared in a snow storm while skiing. Ulvang joined in the official search, then conducted one of his own, in a futile attempt to find his brother before rejoining the ski team. “There is nothing more I can do,” he says. “I have to confront the situation.”

Luge-Bobsled

Confronting the situation. That is what Duncan Kennedy was doing in a bar in Oberhof, Germany, earlier this winter, when neo-Nazi skinheads began chasing one of his black teammates on the U.S. luge team, Robert Pipkins. Kennedy stood up to the thugs, allowing Pipkins to escape out a back door. For his bravery, Kennedy suffered cuts and bruises but won admirers from throughout the world.

If he wins a medal, it will be the first ever for the United States in luge. That would be a great achievement for someone who became interested in the sport while serving as a gofer for ABC during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid., N.Y. A better bet for a medal, however, is Wendel Suckow, who last year became the United States’ first luge world champion.

Last year also was a good one for Brian Shimer, a Floridian who was the world’s leading bobsled driver. He has not had as much success this year, but believes he will be accustomed to the new sled designed by stock car driver Geoff Bodine in time for the Games.

Ice Hockey

The country split into numerous fragments, and most of their top players became professionals in North America, but the Russians, who formed the nucleus of the former Soviet Union’s Olympic dynasty, continue winning. It will not take a “Miracle on Ice” for the United States to beat them, but it would be a significant upset. The young Americans are so rough and tumble that the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. is considering signing them up.