SPORTS: WINTER GAMES '94

Medals · Today's highlights Medal events: men's super-G, men's 10-kilometer classical cross-country, 10-K women's freestyle pursuit cross-country, women's 3,000-meter speedskating. Also: Technical program in men's figure skating. Hockey: U.S. takes on Canada, Slovakia vs. Italy, France faces Sweden. · Luge On her speedy sled Blue Max, thundering down the washboard luge course, Gerda Weissensteiner's shyness melted away. The 24-year-old forest warden from the Italian Alps laid down four ferocious runs to clinch the Olympic women's luge gold yesterday at the leading edge of a European medal sweep. Cammy Myler of Lake Placid, N.Y., seen as a contender for the first U.S. Olympic luge medal after finishing fifth in the '92 Games, came in six places lower this time. Myler couldn't make up time lost when she bounced off the course's icy wall in Tuesday's second run, and put a foot down to stay upright. It happened at turn 13, which is called the Billy Goat Ride in an image drawn from the Norwegian folk tale Peer Gynt. The same curve threw Erin Warren and also knocked Duncan Kennedy out of the men's race. Myler, 25, held 11th place with two respectable windup slides Wednesday. Weissensteiner, one of eight children, lives in her parents' farmhouse in Italy's northeastern Alto Adige region. Clearly into speed, she trains ''like crazy'' and rides motocross motorcycles for fun. Her Olympic gold crowned a year-long string of luge triumphs that included titles in the world championship, World Cup and European championship. She said no one found a perfect line down the icy 16-turn Hunderfossen Olympic track. But Weissensteiner came closest, with a four-run total of 3 minutes, 15.517 seconds. Usually reserved in public, she jumped for joy on the medal podium. Germany's Susi Erdmann, the 1992 bronze medalist, took silver, .759 seconds behind Weissensteiner. Andrea Tagwerker of Austria won the bronze, 1.135 back. Erdmann moved temporarily into the lead with a fast fourth run, and Weissensteiner responded with a final-run pace of nearly 75 mph, her body jiggling like jelly in the shiny blue suit as she hurtled down the rutted course. Tagwerker says Weissensteiner's secret is pressing her head further back toward the ice than other top racers, which cuts wind resistance while lying belly-up, feet-first on her sled. Bethany Calcaterra-McMahon, 19, of Waterford, Conn., finished 12th, .271 seconds behind Myler. Defending gold medalist Doris Neuner of Austria was a distant 10th, more than two seconds off the lead. Her sister Angelika, silver medalist two years ago at Albertville, France, was fourth, 1.384 seconds behind the leader. · Freestyle skiing Defending Olympic champion Donna Weinbrecht of West Milford. N.J., was seventh in the women's moguls, won by Norway's Stine Lise Hattestad. Liz McIntyre of Winter Park, Colo., took the silver medal and Russia's Elizaveta Kojevnikova captured the bronze. McIntyre had the best qualifying score and went last today, but was slower than Hattestad in the event that combines two jumps and speed through moguls. Ann Battelle of Steamboat Springs, Colo., placed eighth. Jean-Luc Brassard of Canada won the gold medal in the men's moguls event. Sergei Shoupletsov of Russia was second and Edgar Grospiron of France, the 1992 gold medalist, was third. · Speedskating HAMAR, Norway -- Two races, two golds, two world records. For the second time in the Olympics, Johann Olav Koss and his adoring fans were too much. Koss was guided to yesterday's gold in the 1,500 meters by roaring Norwegians waving their country's red, white and blue-crossed flag, popping flashbulbs and chanting his name. ''Koss Is The Boss,'' proclaimed a sign hanging from a football field-long wooden rafter in the Viking Ship arena. Powered by a frenetic final lap that raised the noise level inside the tubular hall to rock-concert levels, Koss won in one minute, 51.29 seconds -- .31 faster than the old world mark set on the same ice last month by the Netherlands' Rintje Ritsma. Ritsma had to settle for silver Wednesday with a time of 1:55.99 -- the third-fastest 1,500 ever. Fellow Dutchman Falko Zandstra was third in 1:52.38. Koss' final lap was a surrealistic vision of speed, power, grace and adulation. Down the backstretch, he picked up speed, and a burst of flashing cameras created a strobe-like reflection off the ice to light his way. He rocketed into the third turn, then the fourth, until even the orange-bedecked Dutch fans, silent until now as they saw gold slipping away, were screaming. When he accelerated across the finish line and his time flashed on the scoreboard, the metallic roof shook and shimmied with the noise. Koss peeled back the hood on his redder-than-red racing skin, pumped his fists and held his face in his hands in near-disbelief. · Hockey Oh, great. The U.S. hockey team is winless after two games for the first time in 10 years, its hopes for a medal vanishing, and guess who's dead ahead. The Next One, Olympic version. Paul Kariya, a 19-year-old who is the latest hockey-playing Canadian teen-ager to bear the burden of being the next Wayne Gretzky, must be contained if the United States is to finally win one tonight. It's also accurate to say that, unless the United States (0-0-2) can keep Kariya in check and beat Canada (2-0-0), chances of making the medal round are virtually through. A loss would leave the Americans with just two points from three games, and top-seeded Sweden still to come. They could beat Italy but that would leave them with a just four points, in all likelihood too few to advance. Kariya, a Vancouver native who attends the University of Maine, scored 100 points in 39 games and was the top U.S. college player in leading the Black Bears to the 1993 NCAA title. Five of his Maine teammates are on the U.S. team. · Harding HAMAR, Norway -- Face to face in the Olympics at last, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan greeted each other without rancor yesterday, chatting during a chance encounter, then smiling together for a U.S. figure skating team picture. Everyone around them sighed in relief. Whether by request or circumstance, though, Harding and Kerrigan posed in the photograph from opposite sides, separated by four teammates. They hadn't planned to see each other so soon. Kerrigan's coach, Evy Scotvold, hoped she wouldn't see Harding at all, except on the ice. But by midday, the two skaters had already met in the athletes' village, where they share a house with teammates. Kerrigan was walking up a path from the main building, while Harding was walking down with some friends. They stopped, looked at each other, and spoke a bit. There were no handshakes or hugs, but also no hostility in that awkward first meeting. · Freestyle moguls Stine Lise Hattestad of Norway won the gold in the women's freestyle-skiing moguls event. Liz McIntyre of Winter Park, Colo., won the silver medal and Elizaveta Kojevnikova of Russia, silver medalist in 1992, won the bronze. Jean-Luc Brassard of Canada won the gold in the men's freestyle moguls. Sergei Shoupletsov of Russia was second and Edgar Grospiron of France, the 1992 gold medalist, was third.