With only four days left in the XX Winter Olympic Games (7 p.m., NBC) and with February sweeps coming to an end, tonight marks one of the year’s most competitive evenings of television.

Tonight’s Olympic schedule includes coverage of the most popular figure-skating competition, the ladies’ free-skate gold-medal final. In Olympics past, the world has pretty much stood still for this event. This was certainly true in the tabloid Olympics of 1994, when Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan went head-to-head and watched Oksana Baiul skate away with the gold medal. That night remains the highest-rated sporting event in recent memory, outranking all but a few Super Bowls.

If the Olympics had followed NBC’s script, we would have been watching Michelle Kwan in her final attempt to earn a gold medal, but that scenario disappeared when Kwan withdrew from the games.

Time was, networks didn’t compete with the Olympics. They aired repeats and waited until the games were over. Tonight, CBS, Fox and ABC are taking on NBC with first-run episodes of some of their strongest programs. But the use of these big shows is not without some risk. After all, not everybody can be a ratings winner.

¢ No show has a larger audience than “American Idol” (7 p.m., Fox), which airs a third time this week. After hearing from the top-12 male and female voices, viewers have cast their votes, and four contestants will leave “Idol” tonight.

¢ Tom Bergeron hosts a two-hour episode of “Dancing With the Stars” (7 p.m., ABC). With only three couples left, look for a lot of chatting, glances back and gimmicks to fill up the time.

Once a Thursday-night doormat, ABC has done well, as “Dancing” has become a serious rival to “Survivor.” But the ratings race can have its downside. Over the past two weeks, ABC has changed its schedule, inserting repeats of “Grey’s Anatomy” at the last minute.

¢ Over on “Survivor” (7 p.m., CBS), the madness continues. Who cares about Misty getting the boot? I’m talking about Shane’s seating arrangements. Last week, he took personal possession of a tree stump and declared it “Shane’s thinking seat.” He then forbade others to used the truncated trunk.

¢ Tonight, even some of the repeats are sweeps-worthy. “Without a Trace” (9 p.m., CBS) airs an episode from last November starring “ER” cast-off Alex Kingston and directed by Paul McCrane, who played Dr. Robert Romano on that NBC hospital drama.

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Claudette Colbert stars in the 1934 melodrama “Imitation of Life” (7 p.m., TCM), a tale of mothers, daughters and race prejudice.

¢ On two episodes of “Everybody Hates Chris” (UPN), a neighbor “borrows” Chris’ bike (7 p.m.), Halloween (8 p.m.).

¢ A European honeymoon goes anything but smoothly in the 2003 comedy “Just Married” (7 p.m., WB), starring Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy.

¢ A kidnapping leaves little evidence behind on “CSI” (8 p.m., CBS).

¢ Three pairs remain on “Skating With Celebrities” (8 p.m., Fox).