LILLEHAMMER: ’94 WINTER OLYMPICS : Harding Raises New Questions : Figure skating: She has difficulty in practice, then avoids queries about the attack on Kerrigan.

As Tonya Harding tried to use spin control at her first Norway news conference and restrict questions and comments to her skating, attention veered Friday from her legal situation to her physical condition and whether Harding will be able to skate in the Winter Olympics at all.

After observing Harding at practice in Hamar, one professional skating coach, Marie Millikan, told The Times, “I can tell something’s wrong. She can’t even stand on her landing leg.”

Harding is experiencing pain in her right ankle. The U.S. Olympic Committee has until Monday to replace her if necessary with Michelle Kwan, 13, of Torrance, who arrived Thursday and is practicing in Lillestrom, near Oslo, where her coach pronounced her ready, willing and able. Competition for the women begins Wednesday.

Harding quit practice early Friday but downplayed it later, saying, “I don’t need to be ready right this second.”

It was the landing leg of Nancy Kerrigan that a hired assailant set out to harm Jan. 6, after allegedly having been paid by Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, to eliminate her top American rival.

As to the sale by Gillooly of film footage of a half-naked Harding that appeared on television and in newspapers, Harding, 23, said, “I am very upset and I am ashamed. I’m embarrassed. The one thing I have to say is, if everyone could put themselves in my position, how would you feel?”

Wearing a USA uniform during her 37-minute meeting with media, Harding sat with her coach, Diane Rawlinson, to whom she deflected many questions. Harding had requested that her attorney also be at her side during the news conference, but USOC officials said they would grant her no privileges denied other athletes.

After fielding a few routine questions from a USOC spokeswoman, Harding appeared stunned by the first question from the floor. A New York Times reporter asked of Harding that, because she had “lied” about everything from smoking cigarettes to what she originally had told the FBI of her knowledge of the crime against Kerrigan and had even reportedly flunked polygraph tests, “Why should we believe anything you say now?”

Rawlinson rushed to Harding’s rescue with, “We’re here to talk about Tonya’s skating.”

Harding was nevertheless pressed for a response.

“I agree with my coach,” she finally said.

Many other inquiries went unanswered, Harding calling the questions inappropriate. Among the non-skating issues Harding did address was to confirm that the American television program “Inside Edition” had signed the skater to an exclusive contract for an unspecified sum and that the Oregon-based Nike sporting-goods conglomerate also had donated funds to Harding, reportedly $25,000 that will go toward coaching expenses and legal costs.

At mention of her having skipped the Winter Olympics’ opening ceremony for the second time, Harding and her coach contended that a U.S. team leader had requested that the skater stay away. Harding viewed the Feb. 12 ceremony on television at her home in Oregon.

Asked how she felt, whether she was hurting inside, Harding replied, “Sometimes.”

However else she is hurting is unclear.

Harding clutched her right ankle in pain after one awkward landing during practice. Millikan, who has no athletes here but is working for the Associated Press, observed the difficulties Harding was having with her landing leg, even on routine maneuvers.

On one triple loop, Millikan said, “She came down really hard. She did it perfectly, but then she stepped off the ice and grabbed her ankle. It’s absolutely hurting.

“In my opinion, something is definitely bothering her. Some of the jumps, she just can’t handle.”

The skater expressed no concern that she will be unfit to compete. The reason she and her coach called off practice prematurely was because, Harding said, “I want to be perfect and I wasn’t. We just decided I was done.”

Meanwhile, Kwan, who was runner-up to Harding at the national championships last month in Detroit, is ready to step in.

“Michelle skated great today, just great,” one eyewitness told The Times. “She’s ready to go.”

Harding did not allude to Kerrigan here Friday except to say, “We both give each other respect on the ice. . . . I have a great deal of respect for Nancy.”

She did acknowledge what she described as a “brief encounter” between them in the Olympic village two days ago.

Said Harding: “It was very positive. We said hello. It’s kind of a private thing.”

Times staff writer Randy Harvey contributed to this story from Hamar.