Moguls Take Odd Twists for the U.S. : Freestyle skiing: McIntyre finishes unexpected first in eliminations. Favored Weinbrecht is sixth.

Diann Roffe-Steinrotter wasn’t the only U.S. surprise in women’s skiing here Tuesday. There were two others.

Donna Weinbrecht, the Olympic gold medalist in women’s moguls two years ago at Albertville, France, and the heavy favorite here, bobbled a bit on her run in the moguls eliminations--the medal runs are scheduled today--and finished an unhappy sixth.

But Liz McIntyre, her teammate, surprised the field by placing first.

They and fellow American Ann Battelle, who finished eighth, joined the field of 16 women who made the finals.

The U.S. men fared worse. Troy Benson and Sean Smith, finishing 13th and 16th, qualified, but Craig Rodman and Trace Worthington missed. Worthington, primarily an aerials specialist, said he was skiing the bumps just to keep from going stale. Aerial eliminations are scheduled Monday.

Mogul skiing is relatively new to Olympic competition, having made its debut at Albertville. With rock music blaring and before a panel of seven judges, competitors race down a steep hill studded with hard little snow mounds and do aerial tricks off two built-in jumps. Technique counts for 50%, speed and jumping 25% each.

The idea is to ski fast but rhythmically, knees together, the lower legs pumping like pistons to absorb the bumps while the upper body is still. Except for the jumps, where significant height is necessary for cleanly executed aerials, skis are to be kept on the snow, the skier proceeding aggressively but in control.

Weinbrecht, who has won six of seven World Cup competitions this season, had a good time, 29.90 seconds, and scored well enough on her jumps, a twister-spread and a double twister, but her slight loss of rhythm between jumps cost her in technique and she finished with 23.96 points to 25.23 for McIntyre.

Norwegian Stine Lise Hattestad kept the crowd happy by placing second with 24.91, and Russian Elizaveta Kojevnikova was third with 24.70.

A clearly disappointed Weinbrecht breezed past reporters, then later sent word through Deborah Engen Clouse, one of the U.S. press attaches here, that she needed to get focused.

“She was not too pleased with her run,” Clouse said. “She was not happy about her squibble. She said she had been really warm during her run and maybe too relaxed. She thought maybe she was too warm because she had trained too much this morning.”

There are no perfect scores in mogul skiing, but McIntyre’s was an impressive run, and she didn’t even do everything she had wanted.

“I was going to do a daffy-twister,” she said of her first jump. “But I could only get the daffy off. That will give me something to do tomorrow. But I’m very happy with my run.”

A twister involves twisting from side to side from the waist down. A spread is a sideways leg split, and in a daffy the skier kicks one leg forward, the other back. Nobody was doing helicopters Tuesday but a helicopter is a 360-degree turn, and a 720 is two of them.

Canadian Jean-Luc Brassard was the top men’s qualifier, beating out Edgar Grospiron of France, the ’92 gold medalist. Brassard totaled 26.78 points, Grospiron 26.65. Serguei Choupletsov of Russia was third with 26.64.

Tuesday’s scores do not carry over to today’s finals.

“I’m going to relax now and treat it as a whole new competition tomorrow,” said Benson, a surprise among the American men. He had been only an alternate on the national team earlier this season but got his chance when Jim Moran was injured.