Crowded field at World Figure Skating championships

The extraordinary number of entries in the world figure skating championships starting Sunday mean that would-be medallists and debutants alike will be obliged to skate their full free programs in a pre-contests qualifier.

All 47 men and 46 women will have to run through their programs twice, with only the best 24 in each group advancing to the competition. It is the first time qualifying has had to be held in the skating championships.

That meant Canadian Kurt Browning's take-off of Humphrey Bogart's Rick from ''Casablanca'' would be seen twice; there would be two long looks at the elastic-bodied Surya Bonaly; and Latvian Konstantin Kostins would be offering at least a pair of his immaculate quadruple toe loop.

The men were being subjected to this eliminating process on Sunday, the women Monday.

The flood of entries is caused by the newcomer countries, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Israel. Entries in the two other contests, for pairs (22 taking part) and dance (31 couples), though heavy, were not deemed high enough to require an elimination.

No titleholders were defending, all having turned professional after the Albertville Olympics. With the exception of the dancers Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko from Moscow, all were threatening to come back as amateurs next season in order to gain Olympic exposure at least, if not gold medals.

Poised in the wings at Prague were Viktor Petrenko, Kristi Yamaguchi, and the pairs Natalya Mishkutyonok and Artur Dmitryev, last year's Olympic and world champions.

Alongside them are also other stars -- the two Brians, Boitano of the United States and Orser from Canada; Germany's Katarina Witt, an Olympic champion at Sarajevo and Calgary who has already been ruled eligible; the British dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, similarly of Sarajevo vintage; and even Denise Biellmann, the Swiss world champion in 1981.

All have until early May to lodge their Olympic claims and their shadows lie over Prague. In a sport that is neither measured by a tape nor timed by a watch there is some fear that these stars' reputations will cloud the vision of the Olympic judges.

Browning's fate in Prague will be watched closely by the would-be returnees. The three-time world champion fell from grace last year, placing sixth at the Olympics and losing his world title to Petrenko. Prague is the right place to reassert his authority for it was here 31 years ago another Canadian, Donald Jackson, beat the rest of the world when he executed the first triple lutz.

After last year's debacle, 27-year-old Browning felt he needed a change of pace. He switched trainers from Michael Jiranek to Louis Stong and moved his training camp from Alberta to Toronto.

Ranged against him in Prague will be countryman Elvis Stojko, third in the world last season and who ran Browning close at their recent nationals; the balletic European champion Dmitriy Dmitrenko, from Kiev, Ukraine, who can match anything technical the Canadians do; the explosive Frenchman Philippe Candeloro; and Scotts Davis, surprise winner of the U.S. championship.

After eliminations Monday in the women's event, 19-year-old Bonaly, who captured her third European title six weeks ago, will prepare to seize her first world crown. The French skater has already defeated all her likely rivals with the exception of American Nancy Kerrigan.

The elegant Bostonian placed second in the world last year behind Yamaguchi and has since won a national title. She is erratic technically, however, as is the highly-rated Lu Chen from China, bronze medal winner in the world last year. The triple lutz, essential in a world champion's repertoire, has repeatedly edluded the youngster from Harbin, China.

Bonaly's main threats look like Japan's Yuka Sato, the winner of last October's Skate America, and the 15-year-old Ukrainian Oksana Bayul. At the recent Europeans, Bayul, an orphan born in Dnepropetrovsk but living now in Odessa on the Black Sea, only lost to Bonaly on a 3-6 judges' verdict.

The first title to be decided, the pairs on Wednesday, sees the spectacular Canadians Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, third in the world and at the Olympics last year, as favorites now that the top Russians have turned pro. They were twice second, in 1991 and 1990. New European champions Marina Yeltsova and Andrei Bushkov from St. Petersburg will attempt to keep the title at home while locals Radka Kovarikova and Rene Novotny, second in the world last year, will be looking for a home win also.