Kerrigan Passing Up Big Meet : Skating: Association bemoans move by Olympic silver medalist to withdraw from World Championships in Japan.

Nancy Kerrigan will withdraw from this month’s World Figure Skating Championships, forfeiting her berth to first alternate Michelle Kwan of Torrance.

“She has been pretty exhausted and she just felt that she’s had a good Olympics,” Kerrigan’s coach, Evy Scotvold, told the Associated Press. “And I think we all thought she deserved a rest if she wanted to. And I think it’s hard to get up for another competition so soon.”

Kerrigan has informed U.S. Figure Skating Assn. officials of her intention, but the group is waiting for written notification before announcing it, sources told The Times Sunday.

Another had said that Kerrigan might change her mind about the March 22-27 competition in Chiba, Japan, if she believed dropping out would further damage her image--which has suffered because of a series of public relations gaffes since she won the silver medal in the Winter Olympics 10 days ago.

One of those was her leaving Norway before the closing ceremony and appearing at Disney World on the same day the flame was extinguished at Lillehammer.

At a parade to honor her Sunday in Stoneham, Mass., her mother, Brenda Kerrigan, said security considerations led the family to leave early.

“There were some threats on her life,” she said. “(Nancy) did not know about it until last night. . . . We made the decision because the closing ceremonies are filled with so many people, to leave early, not to have more of a problem.”

When they learned during the Olympics that Kerrigan was leaning toward withdrawing from the World Championships, USFSA officials were dismayed because of the potential impact that could have on the development of women’s figure skating in the United States.

They consider Kerrigan their best hope for a women’s medal, which the United States needs in order to be able to send three women to the 1995 World Championships in Birmingham, England.

If no U.S. woman finishes among the top three in Chiba, the United States will be limited to two competitors next year. That was the situation this year for both the Olympics and the World Championships after the United States’ best finish in the 1993 World Championships was Kerrigan’s fifth.

“Nancy is under no obligation because she has taken no USFSA money this year,” USFSA President Claire Ferguson said during the Olympics. “But we would hope that she would feel some responsibility to us.”

Kerrigan’s agent, Jerry Solomon, was not available for comment Sunday, but he said recently that his client has been under physical and emotional stress since suffering knee injuries in a Jan. 6 assault. He also referred to her busy schedule, including the appearance at Disney World and this week as host of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” but emphasized that her decision is not be based on commercial factors.

The other U.S. entrant in the World Championships is national champion Tonya Harding, but her participation in Chiba is uncertain, pending a disciplinary hearing scheduled to begin Thursday in Colorado Springs, Colo., to determine whether she can retain her USFSA membership.

A USFSA hearing panel concluded before the Olympics that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Harding was aware of or involved in the plot that resulted in the assault on Kerrigan.

An appeal by Harding’s lawyers to postpone the hearing until after the World Championships was denied Friday by the USFSA.

If neither Kerrigan nor Harding competes in Chiba, the United States would be represented by two untested teen-agers, Kwan, 13, and Nicole Bobek, 16, of Colorado Springs, Colo.