THE COMEBACK KIDS

The sport of sequins, mascara and the kiss-and-cry area has come to the home of the Flyers and Eagles this week, four years too late from the local perspective.

This is a town that could have appreciated Tonya Harding and her unique take on the concept of a lead-pipe cinch. Tonya’s bumbling band of amateur henchmen? Here, they would have passed as light entertainment--a slapstick version of the Broad Street Bullies.

But that was a different time, different Olympic trials, and the Harding era of blood-’n’-guts figure skating was put on ice long ago.

Still, the U.S. figure skating establishment is doing whatever it can to fit in as it readies for its 1998 national championships, which begin tonight at the CoreStates Center.

Consider, for instance, the buildup--or was it a breakdown?--leading to this event:

* Todd Eldredge, 1996 men’s world champion--out three weeks because of a separated shoulder and strained rib muscles.

* Michelle Kwan, 1996 women’s world champion--out since early November because of a stress fracture of the left foot.

* Todd Sand, half of the 1994, 1995 and 1996 national champion pairs team--limited to one event this season because of a bad back and a wrenched wrist.

The roster of U.S. Olympic figure-skating hopefuls reads more like a weekly NFL injury report.

Tara Lipinski?

The tiny, 15-year-old reigning women’s world titlist has not sprained, strained, broken or bruised anything lately, but she was sidelined from the top step of the victory podium for 2 1/2 months because of a dread disorder known--and feared--throughout figure skating circles as “the flutz.”

The last three months in the history of the sport in this country has seemed one long scan of the disabled list. In 1998, as opposed to 1994, no one waits for the nationals to get whacked in the knee. Now, they try to get the injuries out of the way early and hope the limp onto the ice for the short program isn’t too noticeable.

This is the kind of 1997-98 season it has been for U.S. figure skating: When Kwan, the Olympic gold-medal favorite, had a cast put on her left foot for two weeks--costing her the opportunity to compete in the Champions Series Final in Munich in late December--her coach started thanking his lucky stars.

“Thank God she hurt the foot when she did,” Frank Carroll said. “She still has time to recover before the Olympic Games.”

As for the nationals, it’s grimace-and-see time for Kwan. She skated without great difficulty in practice Monday, but Thursday’s short program will be her first competitive performance since the first week of November, when she winced her way to first place at Skate Canada.

Kwan has skated in only two Champions Series events this season, but won both. In late October in Detroit, she beat Lipinski on Lipinski’s home ice, but a potential rematch in Munich was scuttled on orders by Kwan’s physician.

So Kwan spent the holidays at home with her family, although she acknowledges, “I would’ve rather been in Germany . . . because that’s where the competition is going to be. The people there are going to be at the Olympics and the worlds.”

With Kwan a no-show, Lipinski defeated Germany’s Tanja Szewczanko and Russia’s Maria Butyrskaya for first place. It was Lipinski’s first international victory since the 1997 world championship last March in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Lipinski had been 0-2 heading into Munich, having lost to Kwan at Skate America and France’s Laetitia Huber at the Lalique Trophy competition in November.

The problem?

In the eye of the beholder, argued Lipinski’s coach, Richard Callaghan. But isn’t that always the case in the ever-subjective sphere of figure skating?

Callaghan maintained that there was nothing wrong with Lipinski, other than an acute case of post-world-title syndrome.

“I think Tara’s being a little more scrutinized right now,” he said. And upon closer inspection, judges contended they had detected a flaw in Lipinski’s repertoire: an incorrect launch of the lutz, a score-reducing wobble ominously referred to as a “flutz.”

Callaghan retooled Lipinski’s approach on the jump before the Champions Series final, and the maneuver did not cost her a deduction in either of her two programs.

In the process, however, Butyrskaya voiced another complaint about Lipinski’s skating, deriding it as “childish.” And Butyrskaya did not stop there.

“I think I am a more artistic skater and I have more elaborate choreography,” the four-time Russian champion said. “I’m a woman on the ice, and I think it’s more interesting to watch.”

That, of course, has been a long-held criticism of Lipinski, who, even beneath layers of makeup and carefully calculated “adult” hair styles, continues to look 15 going on 10. It became an issue worthy of international concern only after Lipinski defeated Butyrskaya--and everybody else--for the world championship.

Eldredge, bidding for his fifth U.S. singles title, is hoping, finally, for a crisis-free Olympic trials. In 1992, he withdrew because of a back injury; in 1994, he was stricken with flu. Skating with a 104-degree fever, Eldredge failed to qualify for the U.S. team.

En route to Philadelphia, Eldredge suffered a shoulder separation at Skate America, then strained rib muscles over-compensating for the shoulder injury.

Result: A desultory fourth-place showing in Paris--Eldredge’s lowest finish in an international invitational competition in his eight-year career--and third at the Champions Series final behind Russia’s Ilia Kulik and Canada’s Elvis Stojko.

Eldredge, however, regarded that third-place finish as a positive, calling it “the best I’ve skated so far this year. It’s good to be healthy and not deal with all these injuries.”

Monday, Eldredge worked out on the practice rink at the Pennsylvania Convention Center and reported all was well with the shoulder and the ribs.

Not so with the Convention Center ice, which Eldredge described as “bordering on dangerous.”

Just what these U.S. championships need: a practice rink intent on tempting the fates.

Then again, what do you expect from Philadelphia? Special amenities? Hey, the ice was frozen, wasn’t it?