Unexpected Reigns at Pro Skating Championships

Two upsets, a love-in and a do-over.

Drama abounded and the unexpected reigned at the World Professional Figure Skating Championships on Saturday night. Brian Boitano and Kristi Yamaguchi were considered unbeatable, but were clearly outskated and lost their respective crowns to first-time winners Kurt Browning and Yuka Sato.

''I'm very surprised, totally ecstatic, and a little flustered,'' said Browning, whose rubber-legged performance to the Commodores' 1970s hit ''Brick House'' wowed the crowd of 18,150 and earned an aggregate score of 49.9 out of 50.

Czech pair Radka Kovarikova and Rene Novotny got a second chance after Kovarikova damaged her skate when she clipped a lighting decoration late in their program. Kovarikova rested her skate a la Tonya Harding on the rinkside boards while repairs were made and organizers went over the rules. They got to do the whole thing over again, and came out winners.

''When I hit the board, I totally damaged my edge,'' Kovarikova said. ''I didn't know what I was going to do.''

The one constant on the night was reaffirmation of the skating audience's long-time love affair with Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, who collected nine 10.0s on the evening and were showered with applause and affection as they won the dance for the fourth time.

It was hard to decide who pulled the bigger upset, Browning or Sato. Browning didn't give himself much of a chance coming in, and he was trailing Boitano after the technical program.

''I didn't really think Landover as my type of competition,'' Browning said. ''But when people stood up after my first number, I thought to myself, 'I think there's some magic here tonight.' So I tried to maintain it for the next hour and a half.''

Browning, a four-time world champion on the Olympic-eligible level, struggled after turning pro last year. He said before the competition that he had reach a point in his career where shows meant more than titles, but afterward he had no trouble realizing the importance of his victory.

''It means a lot to me, because I had a water-logged year last year and couldn't get going,'' the Canadian skater said. ''I really kind of saw a night like this not happening again. Having a year like that means you don't take skating for granted. I went home and learned how to work again.''

Boitano's powerful technical program, a reprise of his 1994 Olympic free skate to ''Appalachian Spring,'' was negated by a classic-style artistic program that looked tame compared to Browning's dynamic gyrations.

''It think it was the best all-around competition for me this year,'' said Boitano, a six-time winner of the event. ''It's so subjective, artistic programs. I won the technical, that's what's important to me.''

Dressed in pink, Sato touched down on one jump and two-footed another landing in a romantic program to music from ''Jekyll and Hyde.'' But it was a more challenging artistic program than the one skated by Yamaguchi, who wore what was basically a nightie for a playful routine that looked more at home in an exhibition than a competition.

Sato's only other major title, at the 1994 World Championships held in Japan, was credited to home-ice advantage, so her victory here helped justify her claim as a true champion.

''In the United States, to win as a Japanese ... it is not easy to do. No one really knows about me,'' Sato said. ''It is really hard for me to win in this country. I just started getting the feeling what kind of stuff American audiences like.''

The expected duel between Yamaguchi and Nancy Kerrigan, in their first meeting as pros, never materialized. Kerrigan was rusty in her only major individual competition this season, and finished fourth behind Denise Biellmann of Switzerland.

Torvill and Dean came up with two crowd-pleasing performances to Simon and Garfunkel songs to edge the spell-binding dramatic routines of Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko. Dean wore glasses and an orange vest to play a goofy lover-boy to ''Celicia.''

In the pairs, Kovarikova won over a field weakened by the death of Sergei Grinkov, who died of a heart attack last month in Lake Placid. Grinkov and Ekaterina Gordeeva were the defending champions, and a moment of silence was held in his memory.