LILLEHAMMER / ’94 WINTER OLYMPICS : The Ones to Watch Tonight : Figure skating: Kerrigan goes early, and she should set the tone.

If all the contenders in the women’s figure skating competition perform their freestyle programs without significant errors tonight, who will win the gold medal?

That is a question nine judges will decide, no doubt after some disagreement, because figure skating is perhaps the most subjective of all Olympic sports.

In the freestyle program, which accounts for two-thirds of the final score, judges award marks for technical merit and artistic impression. The winner usually is the one who best combines those elements in her four-minute routine.

The last two women’s gold medalists, Germany’s Katarina Witt in 1984 and 1988 and the United States’ Kristi Yamaguchi in 1992, are examples of all-around skaters preferred by the judges. Nancy Kerrigan is the woman in this year’s competition whose style most closely resembles theirs.

A brief analysis of the leading medal contenders’ freestyle programs:

NANCY KERRIGAN, 24

United States

In first place after the technical program, she has prepared a challenging freestyle program skated to a medley of Neil Diamond music. She plans six triple jumps, including two in combination.

But her jumps have been inconsistent in the past, and skating second in the last group of six women, she might opt for a more conservative approach. If she decreases the difficulty of her program and performs it cleanly, maintaining her usually high marks for artistic impression, it will cost her for technical merit but might put more pressure on those who follow.

OKSANA BAIUL, 16

Ukraine

The most gifted skater to come along artistically in decades, she can perform to “Ave Maria” and Michael Jackson and sell both of them.

But she has only five triple jumps in her program and has been practicing four. When she chooses to do her triple salchow-double toe combination, she often misses. So she sometimes downsizes it to two double jumps. But her high-energy program to Broadway show tunes is bound to earn exceptional marks for artistic impression, and if the others cannot do their tricks, she will win.

SURYA BONALY, 20

France

The four-time European champion, who placed third in the technical program, has the most demanding freestyle program with seven triple jumps planned.

Like Kerrigan, she does two of them in combination. Her combination, however, is more difficult than Kerrigan’s. And skating next-to-last in the last group, she can pump it up another notch if she feels she needs it.

But although she has improved artistically, as she is ready to show in her program to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” she still sometimes bounces like the former gymnast that she is, instead of stroking the ice.

CHEN LU, 17

China

She has to skate well and hope for significant mistakes by the three women ahead of her to rise from fourth place to win the gold medal. Her program is worthy technically, with seven triple jumps planned, although she has been practicing no true combinations. When she was required to do one in the technical program, she collided with the sideboard in a corner of the rink and almost lost her composure.

Her music, from the movie, “The Mission,” suits her melancholy style. Some call it lifeless, but she is still learning.

KATARINA WITT, 28

Germany

A program that was technically good enough, barely, six years ago to win her a second gold medal is no longer sufficient because of the gains women have made in the sport.

She has places for five triple jumps but might do no more than three. She, however, made it to sixth place with an inferior technical program that she skated superbly, and she could climb even higher if she performs as flawlessly in her freestyle program.

As a memorial to Sarajevo, where she won her first gold medal in 1984, she will skate to Pete Seeger’s anti-war song, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” The last of the competitors to go on, she is guaranteed to bring down the house in the Olympic Amphitheatre.