‘94 WINTER LILLEHAMMER OLYMPICS : Torvill and Dean Must Face Music as Russians Win : Ice dancing: British routine doesn’t go over with judges. Gritschuk and Platov get gold.

The chill was so thick after the Winter Olympic ice dancing competition Monday night that it could have been cut with the blade of a skating boot, a sensation that had nothing to do with the temperature inside the Olympic Amphitheatre.

The Russian teams that finished first and second, gold medalists Oksana Gritschuk and Evgeny Platov and silver medalists Maia Usova and Alexandr Zhulin, acted as if they would rather have been standing anywhere but next to each other on the victory stand, while bronze medalists Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Great Britain seemed equally displeased with their location. There are more smiles in Ingmar Bergman movies.

There certainly were few on the faces of the 6,000 spectators, who brought so many bouquets to throw onto the ice in appreciation of Torvill and Dean that every florist between here and Oslo can retire. The fans were audibly disappointed when only one judge agreed with their point of view.

Five of the nine judges preferred the rock-and-roll routine of Gritschuk and Platov, who were not particularly sold on it themselves. “I prefer blues,” Gritschuk said when the program was presented to them by their coach, Natalia Linichuk.

She said the music suited Gritschuk, 22, and Platov, 26, because it allowed them to demonstrate that they are “young, fresh and talented.” That did not necessarily separate them from Usova, 29, and Zhulin, 30, who won first-place marks from three judges, but it certainly did from Torvill, 36, and Dean, 35, who were returning to serious competition after 10 years as professionals.

Americans Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow fell during their routine and finished 15th out of 21 couples.

The last time Torvill and Dean skated in the Winter Olympics was in 1984, when they won with a sultry free dance to Ravel’s “Bolero” that earned perfect scores of 6.0 for artistic impression from all nine judges. They received one perfect score Monday night for artistic impression, from--naturally--the British judge, but the others apparently found their program, skated to “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” derivative.

The fact that it was derivative of their own prior work--”Mack and Mabel” in 1982, “Barnum” in ’83 and the “West Side Story” that Dean choreographed for Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay in ‘92--counted for little. The free dance is supposed to be original.

Torvill and Dean came closer to duplicating their earlier magic in Sunday night’s original dance, which vaulted them from third place after the compulsory dances to first. They skated the program “The History of Love,” which was appropriate for Dean because his was on display for everyone to see and remark upon.

While he acted as if he were making love to Torvill on the ice, his girlfriend, former U.S. world champion Jill Trenary, was in the stands, and his ex-wife, Isabelle Duchesnay, was serving as a commentator for French television. Ooh-la-la .

But as titillating as that might be, the scandal in ice dancing occurred in 1992 when Zhulin, who has been married to Usova since 1986, had an affair with Gritschuk. If Zhulin was attempting to keep it a secret from Usova, he must have been taking tips from Gary Hart. Gritschuk wore his wedding ring around her neck in the compulsory dances during the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.

That upset Usova so much that Zhulin retrieved his ring, enabling them to concentrate on their dancing long enough to earn the bronze medal. Fourth were Gritschuk and Platov.

The truce did not last long. In the spring of ‘92, during a tour stop in Los Angeles, Usova reportedly spotted Gritschuk sipping a margarita at Spago, grabbed her by the hair and began beating her head against the top of the bar. A melee ensued.

Natalia Dubova, who coached both pairs in Lake Placid, N.Y., decided they needed to be separated by at least one ocean, sending Gritschuk home to Moscow. A short time later, Platov, whose wife was there, followed.

“I love Maia very much,” Dubova told “Blades on Ice” magazine last fall. “I bring her from Gorky when she was 9, and when I see the cry of Maia . . .”

Observers say this story is far from concluded.

“Oksana told me last year she is going to marry Alexandr Zhulin,” said a Russian journalist, Yelena Vaitsekhovskaia. “I think her main aim is to make Maia nervous.”

On the victory stand Monday night, Usova and Zhulin and Gritschuk and Platov hugged and kissed Torvill and Dean. But when it came time for the Russian teams to congratulate each other, all they could muster were polite handshakes that fooled no one.