FIGURE SKATING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS : Canada’s Browning Retains Title

HALIFAX, Canada — As the reigning world champion, Canada’s Kurt Browning skated so poorly at times this year that Toller Cranston, seven-time Canadian champion and now a television commentator, said his compatriot had “taken a bath in sewage water.” But Thursday night at the Halifax Metro Centre, the liquid that Browning doused himself with looked a lot like champagne.

Seemingly unable to make a misstep in front of a fawning crowd of 9,500, Browning, 23, skated his best freestyle program since last year’s World Championships at Paris to become the first of four Canadian men champions to defend his title.

He also is the first world champion to repeat since the United States’ Scott Hamilton in 1984 and reaffirmed his status as the early favorite for the gold medal at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.

The Soviet Union’s Viktor Petrenko, who had the lead after the first two phases of the competition, was steady but uninspiring in his freestyle program as he finished second.

In contrast, Christopher Bowman of Van Nuys was hardly steady--eccentric, in fact--but captivating as he abandoned his 4 1/2-minute program about halfway through it and salvaged a bronze medal. He finished second last year.

“I was going through the program and thinking, ‘This is neat, and my hair looks good, but I’m going against Kurt and Viktor so I better start jumping my brains out,’ ” said Bowman, who skated after Browning and Petrenko. He landed a double axel, triple axel and triple toe-loop in the final 45 seconds.

“I figured, ‘It’s time I forget these stupid instructions, go for it and just skate from the heart.’ ”

His coach, Frank Carroll, said, “I was in total shock, a new program unveiled for the first time in the World Championships.”

Todd Eldredge, who won the U.S. title this year after defending champion Bowman withdrew with a back injury, finished fifth, an encouraging performance for an 18-year-old competing for the first time at this level.

Browning, 23, had seven triple jumps in his program, landing six of them with no trouble. But he was disappointed because he decided at the last minute to leave a quadruple jump out of his program. He is the only skater ever to land one at a major competition.

“I thought a fall would make the competition too close,” he said.

Browning seemed as much relieved as he was excited to win after finishing third in two recent international competitions and barely winning his own national championship last month.

“People asked me if I wanted to win to prove something to everybody,” he said. “Actually, I wanted to prove to myself that I could still have a week of good skating.”

The brother and sister team of Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay, who were raised in Canada but skate for France, received two perfect scores of 6.0 in the second phase Thursday of the dance competition, the original set pattern. But they still trail defending champions Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko of the Soviet Union entering tonight’s free dance. U.S. champions Susan Wynne and Joseph Druar are fourth.