NAGANO, Japan, Feb. 3— In his hometown of Chemnitz in eastern Germany, the figure skater Ingo Steuer owns a pub with a laundry room, so customers can have a beer while their clothes churn through the rinse cycle. If only he could be so creative in avoiding injury.

The scars on the bodies of Steuer and his pairs partner, Mandy Woetzel, read like a zippered road map through their dangerous careers. They are the world pairs champions, but seldom have their expectations exceeded their insurance premiums.

Steuer has the knees of a football offensive lineman, not a figure skater, having undergone surgery six times. Woetzel once caught a skate blade in the head and remained in the hospital for three months. He and Woetzel were forced to withdraw during the long program at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, when she tripped on a rut and fell on her chin. The cut needed stitches and Steuer had to carry her from the ice in his arms.

''Sometimes you stop on your toe pick and sometimes you stop on your chin,'' said Peter Krick, the executive director of the German figure-skating association.

Steuer and Woetzel recovered to win the 1997 world figure skating championship last March, and finally, with the 1998 Winter Olympics approaching, Woetzel and Steuer seemed to be over their troubles. The world title had made them early gold-medal favorites.

But if not for bad luck, they would have no luck at all.

On Dec. 8, Steuer stood on the edge of a street in Chemnitz when a passing car whacked his right forearm with the sideview mirror. The collision broke the mirror and hyperextended his arm, partly tearing ligaments in his right shoulder.

Though pain began to radiate into his neck and back, and he suffered from headaches, Steuer continued to skate after the accident until the discomfort became debilitating at the Champion Series final, an Olympic preview held in Munich, Germany, on Dec. 19 and 20. During the long program, Steuer felt a sharp pain that extended to his head when he caught Woetzel after a triple twist. The pair finished second to Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, but Steuer does not know how.

''I felt a stitch in my ear and after that I couldn't remember anything,'' said Steuer, who left the arena on a stretcher and was taken to a hospital. He needed such a dose of painkillers that he could not perform in the exhibition the next day.

For three weeks, the pair did not skate. For another two weeks, they were limited to footwork tracings. They skipped the European championships in January and only 10 days ago began the lifts and throws that will be necessary to win a medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics. The pairs competition begins Sunday. Under the circumstances, Woetzel and Steuer would be happy with the bronze medal.

During practice today, Steuer, 31, kept shaking his arm like a baseball pitcher who has uncorked a fastball too early in spring training. His right arm is what he uses to lift Woetzel, to throw her and to hold her head just above the ice on a death spiral.

''We don't think about the pain,'' Steuer said. ''It doesn't matter. We will do what we can do. Our dream is a medal.''

Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze of Russia, the 1998 European champions, are the Olympic favorites. Artur Dmitriev of Russia won the 1992 Olympic title and the 1994 silver medal with his previous partner and will attempt to win gold again with Oksana Kazakova. The third medal appears to be up for grabs among Woetzel and Steuer, Marina Eltsova and Andrei Bushkov of Russia and the American pairs, Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen and Jenni Meno and Todd Sand.

Steuer is not the only skater ailing at the Olympics. Ina could not eat for two days because of a stomach virus. Meno is recovering from a bone bruise in her ankle. Steuer said that his main problem now is not pain, but stamina.

''We tried the short program and the long program at home,'' he said. ''It was clean but slow. We have no conditioning.''

This season was to serve as redemption for the 1994 Lillehammer Games, when Steuer held Woetzel's arms behind her during a forward spiral maneuver and she could not break her fall when she hit a divot in the ice. ''We've had enough bad stories,'' Steuer said. Woetzel could only agree.

In 1989, while performing side-by-side camel spins with her former partner, Axel Rauschenbach, Woetzel caught a skate blade in her head that kept her hospitalized for three months and out of school for half a year. Doctors told her to retire, she said, but she insisted on continuing, even if she and Steuer now place extra distance between them on spins to avoid another frightening injury.

''The doctors said it was too dangerous, but I said, 'This is my life, I want it,' '' said Woetzel, who is 24.

Partners since 1992, Woetzel and Steuer skate with a classical presence and employ slow music to accentuate their mature performance. ''It's not Octoberfest,'' Krick said. But they are also a fiery pair whose disagreements have become verbal bonfires. ''He is temperamental and she is sometimes too quick to answer,'' Krick said.

They will take one final shot at an Olympic medal before turning professional. Even if it is not an optimal shot. ''We take the life how it comes,'' Woetzel said.

If only it had come with fewer injuries.

''You train for four years and you see the whole thing disintegrating because of an unfortunate illness or something,'' said John Nicks, who coaches Meno and Sand. ''It's not like golf. If you're sick at the Masters, you've still got the Open and the P.G.A. This is a one-shot deal.''

Photos: Ingo Steuer and Mandy Woetzel led after short program in Champions Series in December, but Steuer's injury was costly. (Associated Press)(pg. C1); Mandy Woetzel and Ingo Steuer of Germany, the world pairs champions, have endured numerous injuries. (Stephen Dunn/Allsport)(pg. C2)