The couple, whose relegation to third place created a stir in Lillehammer and their native Britain, said on Wednesday they would not be going to the world championships in Japan later this month.


"We have had a long hard think about it and we have decided that we will not be going," Dean told reporters after practice at a rink in Milton Keynes in central England.


"We couldn't skate any better than we skated. It was one of those memorable performances. We were disillusioned a little bit about how it happened but we were elated by the reaction -- the audience were our judges."


The Olympic audience, who gave Torvill and Dean's free program an ovation last Monday were amazed at their low marks. They were pushed down to the bronze medal position by Russians Oksana Gritshuk and Yevgeny Platov who took gold and Maya Usova and Alexander Zhulin who won silver.


Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch was forced to call a news conference to quell criticism of the scoring and officials admitted the system was faulty and needed improving.


But Austrian Hans Kutshera the Olympic ice dance referee said he was reluctant to criticize before the world championships. "I will not influence the judges' activities there," he said.


Judges felt Torvill and Dean, at 36 and 35 respectively, the oldest pair in the competition, had made a couple of illegal moves during their free program, an accusation Dean rejected.


The couple, who won the Olympic title in Sarajevo in 1984 with a pulsating routine to Ravel's Bolero, had spent several years as professionals before attempting a comeback after rules governing amateur status were changed. They won the European championship earlier this year in Copenhagen and had worked hard to improve their free program and make it more exciting before Lillehammer.


But the pair said on Wednesday despite the disappointment they did not regret their return and they would always remember the audience reaction.


"I think it was a good note for us to end on. That is what we will remember about our return to competition skating," Torvill said.


Dean said the couple would concentrate on professional careers. "I think there is one more tour left in us," he said.


The pair were practicing for the launch of a skating marathon event to raise money for the former Yugoslavia.


The couple's greatest skating triumph was in Sarajevo and Dean said they felt personal motivation towards helping the stricken people of the region.


"It is unbelievable that the city we grew to love can have been devastated in this cruel way," he said.


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Men's figure skating world champion Kurt Browning also said Wednesday he has decided to end his amateur career. The lure of professional fortunes after his dream of Olympic gold was shattered at Lillehammer last week proved too strong and he will head to the greener pastures of the professional tour.


"It's not over. It's just the beginning," Browning told a news conference just one day after he returned to Canada from the Winter Olympics in Norway.


The 27-year-old, four-time world champion said he will not defend his title at the upcoming world championships in Japan.


"I didn't really feel that a fifth world title was really going to change my life," he said.


Browning won the first of three consecutive world figure skating championships in 1989 in Paris and clinched the crown for the fourth time last March in Prague. His other world titles came in Halifax and Munich.


But an Olympic medal eluded Browning again last week after he fell in the technical program at Lillehammer and finished a disappointing fifth overall, while his Canadian teammate Elvis Stojko won silver.


Browning's performance was a harrowing reminder of the 1992 Albertville Olympics when he fell on his triple axel, also during his short program, and finished sixth.


"I'm excited about moving on," Browning told reporters. "I will now have the opportunity to really show everyone my skating."