These Two Have Major Talent in a Minor Sport : Roller skating: Pairs gold medalists, who also are the defending world champions, seek recognition and a chance to compete in the Olympics.

LOS ANGELES —  They are the defending world champions, but few people know it. They practice for hours, but few people care. They dream of the Olympics, but the Olympics doesn’t want them. They could give it all up, but what would that prove?

They are roller skaters Tina Jerue and Larry McGrew, world-class athletes in an economy-class sport.

“When most people think of roller skating, they think of roller derby,” said McGrew, a Santa Ana resident. “We can be (a world champion like swimmer) Janet Evans, but still no one knows us.”

Monday night, Jerue and McGrew won the gold medal at the U.S. Olympic Festival pairs event at the Shrine Auditorium. It was their second consecutive Festival title.

At a morning practice 12 hours earlier, they weren’t quite at their best. In fact, McGrew had scratches down his arm and blood on his uniform, the result of some miscalculated maneuvers.

“Blood? It happens all the time,” McGrew said.

And you thought this was a sport for wimps.

Last year, Jerue and McGrew won all three major pairs competitions they entered: the Olympic Festival, the U.S. Nationals and the World Championships. Next month in Philadelphia, they will try to win their third consecutive national title.

While some might be surprised that a world roller skating championship exists, competitive skating has been around for nearly 40 years. According to Dennis Collier, who along with his wife, Gail, coaches Jerue and McGrew, the first world championship was held in 1957. The United States has always been strong, but lately the European countries, especially Italy, have been gaining.

Collier keeps a close eye on the sport and it’s no wonder. He and his wife own Skate Ranch in Santa Ana, the county’s original roller skating rink. Built in 1955 among a wide expanse of orange groves, Skate Ranch is something of an institution in Orange County, though these days most know it only as the big red odd-shaped building you drive past as you head north on the Santa Ana Freeway.

But Skate Ranch will soon be put out to pasture. Its lease--the land is owned by the state--is up in October, Collier said, and the building probably will be torn down to make way for the freeway expansion.

Although Collier said the business end of Skate Ranch is thriving, he’s more upset that the competitive skaters will have to find another place to train. Six of the past eight world pairs champions have come from Skate Ranch.

That includes McGrew and Jerue, of course. Losing the site affects McGrew a bit more personally, though. For the past four years, he has rented the small, three-bedroom house attached to the Skate Ranch building. He and two friends share it for $600 a month.

While Collier said he and his wife plan to take their skating business out of state--they recently purchased a rink in Tulsa, Okla.--Jerue and McGrew are uncertain of what lies ahead. Actually, they say, they haven’t given it much thought. Right now, their minds are set only on the present, which means skating, skating, skating . . .

Jerue and McGrew were raised with roller skating in mind. Jerue’s mother, Judy, was an avid skater and won four national titles with Collier between 1968-1974. And Jerue’s older sister, Tamara, was a four-time world pairs champion before retiring in 1988.

McGrew was raised in Ft. Worth, where roller skating was his family’s favorite outing. He moved to California as an established world-class skater in 1986, and became Jerue’s partner the next year.

Actually, their initial season wasn’t too successful.

“We skated together for a month, then I quit,” said Jerue, 22.

Why?

“It was my senior year in high school. Does that explain it?” she asked.

After two years, Jerue, who graduated from Sonora High and now lives with her mother in Corona, returned to the rink. Apparently, the time off didn’t hurt. In 1989, she and McGrew won the World Games, the U.S. title and advanced to the World Championships where, in the middle of their routine, McGrew dropped Jerue on her head.

They still managed to finish in second place.

Since then, they’ve become one of the most popular pairs in roller skating. As they were introduced before their short program Monday afternoon, the crowd of about 300 cheered. Of course, outside the rink, they are rarely recognized.

That doesn’t seem to bother them, although they sometimes wonder why figure skating gets so much more attention. To help promote the sport, McGrew helped put on a roller skating exhibition in China. Collier spent a year there, and took a team from Hong Kong to the World Championships.

It wasn’t all in the name of goodwill, though. If Asian nations became involved in roller skating, Collier said, the International Olympic Committee would have to take notice and consider the sport for the Olympics.

So far, only roller hockey has been allowed into the Olympics--and only as an exhibition sport for 1992. Artistic roller skaters are hoping to compete in the 1996 Games.

Jerue and McGrew don’t know if they can wait that long--”We’re getting pretty old,” McGrew said. Both have career ambitions. McGrew wants to get into television production or directing; Jerue wants to study drama.

But careers can wait, they say. After all, skating through life can’t be half bad.