Yamaguchi, Kerrigan Jump Over Ito : Figure skating: Americans 1-2 after Japanese champion falls in original program. Harding also stumbles.

The most savage sport in the Winter Olympics might be ice hockey. Then again, it might be women’s figure skating, which officially is known as ladies singles but actually consists of a lot of small, young assassins who would rather turn in their sequins than curtsy to each other.

The first day of their competition Wednesday at the Olympic Ice Hall featured intimidation, last-minute strategy changes and more than a few hard knocks. There was no body checking, but it is possible that one of the women tried to decapitate another.

Two U.S. skaters, Kristi Yamaguchi of Fremont, Calif., and Nancy Kerrigan of Stoneham, Mass., managed to remain above the fray as well as the other competitors, performing efficiently and elegantly to finish one-two in the original program. That counts toward one-third of the final score, which will be determined in Friday’s freestyle program.

In third place is the local favorite, France’s Surya Bonaly, the former gymnast who, despite her two European championships, might still look more comfortable on the balance beam than on the ice but did not find the going too slippery Wednesday night.

Although she did not enter the Winter Olympics as a medal favorite, the teen-ager from Paris who once booed the judges when they gave her low scores in the World Championships proved again earlier in the day that she is not one to go gently into the second tier.

During a practice, she performed a back flip that seemed designed to sever Midori Ito’s head at the neck. There was no contact, but Ito, the favorite from Japan, obviously was shaken.

“She didn’t do it on purpose,” said her coach, Didier Gailhaguet. “I apologize to (Midori) if it bothered her.”

After the incident, Ito landed only three of the 10 triple axels that she tried, which might have been the reason that she decided to leave that jump, the most complicated of the triples, out of her original program. As she and the United States’ Tonya Harding are the only women ever to perform triple axels in competition, it gives them an almost unsurpassable edge when they land them.

But Ito became cautious, replacing the triple axel with a triple lutz, an easier--but not easy--jump. Her strategy failed when she fell on that, and although she recovered nicely, the judges placed her fourth, virtually out of contention for the gold medal.

Harding, a sometime drag racer from Portland, Ore., tried her triple axel, and it cost her when she fell. She is in sixth place, right behind another French teen-ager, world junior champion Laetitia Hubert, who performed an energetic but not particularly difficult program without a major error.

Harding’s coach, Dody Teachman, said they discussed eliminating the triple axel after the skater missed it twice last month in the national championships but Harding insisted that it remain.

“She’s just that kind of gal,” Teachman said. “She’ll do it or die.”

Harding’s scores are an example of the difficulty judges are having in determining whether they like the shift among the women toward more risky jumps. There does not seem to be a consensus. Some apparently have decided to reward skaters for difficult programs, even if they are flawed, while others have decided they prefer clean programs, even if they are simpler.

Of the nine judges, two placed Harding fourth and one placed her 11th. Among other inconsistencies, Bonaly received one second-place and one eighth, and Ito received two thirds and one seventh. Denmark’s Anisette Torp-Lind will never figure out the message the judges sent her. One placed her sixth, and one placed her 17th.

There, however, was no doubt that the judges liked Yamaguchi, the reigning world champion. Wearing an ice-blue dress and skating to “The Blue Danube Waltz,” she was first according to all nine judges. On a scale of 6.0, she received seven 5.9s for artistic impression.

The only other skater to receive even one 5.9 was Kerrigan, the bronze medalist in last year’s World Championships who was second according to all the judges but one, the French one, who, in a bit of blatant flag-waving, placed Bonaly second. Skating to Militano’s “The Master and Paradise,” Kerrigan, like Yamaguchi, received her highest marks for style.

But Yamaguchi bristled when asked whether she and Kerrigan won a battle for artistry over athleticism. She pointed out that the triple lutz-double toe combination that they both landed perfectly, the combination that Ito missed, is not for those with weak hearts or ankles.

“I wouldn’t say that was just artistry out there,” she said.

Because of her consistency, Yamaguchi enters Friday night’s freestyle program as an almost prohibitive favorite now that Ito has to climb from fourth. In order to win the gold medal, Ito would have to finish first in the freestyle and hope for a third-place for Yamaguchi.

That is not likely, but, as Yamaguchi said Wednesday night, “Anything can happen.” Who knows? She might have to practice at the same time as Bonaly.