Speedskater J.R. Celski in race against time

Leading the 500-meter sprint on the final day of last month's Olympic trials in short-track speedskating, J.R. Celski crashed, sliding and bouncing violently off the oval's padded wall.

The impact drove the tip of his razor-sharp right skate blade into his left thigh. When Celski came to a stop, he pulled out the blade. Then he looked at the wound.

"My first reaction was, 'What the hell is that?' " he said. "It's purple, red, orange, yellow and I can see the bone. I've never seen anything like that before."

Then the pain came. And the blood. He heard himself screaming. He heard the packed arena in Marquette, Mich., fall into stunned silence.

"Then the third thing I heard was my mom yell," said Celski, 19, from Federal Way. "The rink was silent except for her scream. That's the only thing I heard."

The blade had sliced through Celski's skintight speed suit and through his left quadriceps muscle all the way to the femur, leaving a horizontal 6-inch gash above his knee and missing, by an inch, his femoral artery.

His parents, seated among friends and relatives just two rows above where he fell, jumped the boards. When they got to him, friend Walter Rusk was using his own sweat shirt as a tourniquet. A puddle of blood was growing on the ice beneath them. It was Sept. 12 — five months, to the day, from the 2010 Winter Olympics' opening ceremony.

"He looked up," said his mom, Sue, "and said, 'Mom, it's over.' "

Not so fast. Six weeks later, Celski is in a race against time. He is living at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, trying to heal for the Olympics. Six hours a day, six days a week, Celski is working to get better.

"I'm pain-free," he said. "It doesn't mean I'm not cautious. I don't want any setbacks."

A team consisting of three doctors, three certified athletic trainers, a physical therapist, a sports psychologist and a sports dietitian, all trained to get elite Olympic athletes back to their sports, work with him.

One of them is Dr. Eric Heiden, the five-time speedskating gold medalist who is now an orthopedic surgeon in Salt Lake City, Celski's home and training base.

"That's probably the coolest opportunity I've had," Celski said of Heiden, team doctor for the U.S. Speedskating team. "That's a guy you want on your side."

Celski is resolute about his rehab. Dr. Bill Moreau, the OTC's sports medicine clinics manager, says that, along with an upbeat attitude, has put him at least two weeks ahead of schedule. On Friday, Celski got to ditch his crutches.

"I'm going to throw these things from the highest building in Colorado Springs," Celski said by phone Friday.

Not so long ago, when the up-and-coming Celski was showing Olympian promise — but was at 15 too young to qualify for the 2006 Games — time was on his side. Now it's the enemy.

As he mends, others, like Celski's childhood idol, Apolo Ohno, are putting in months of hard training and fine-tuning. Ohno, eight years older, skated inline at the same Pattison's West Roller Rink in Federal Way as Celski. For the first time, at the end of last season, Celski started beating Ohno. At trials, Celski defeated Ohno twice but trailed him in the overall standings. Both made the Olympic team, with Celski racking up enough points before his accident.

Now, Celski has gone from counting days to counting degrees. When he started rehab, he could bend his knee 50 degrees. Then it went to 110.

"I'm at 125 today," Celski said Friday. (Normal is 135.)

Celski has lost 12 pounds, mostly leg muscle. It took 60 stitches to sew up three layers of muscle and outer skin. Celski's daily rehab consists of two three-hour sessions and includes riding a stationary bike, push-ups, weight-bearing exercises on his right leg, and wearing mechanized pants that push fluid away from his wound.

When Moreau first saw the severity of Celski's injury, he thought "no chance," he said. Now he thinks differently.

"His recovery is phenomenal," said Moreau. "We just keep pushing, and he just keeps getting better. If he actually does make it, it will be something close to a miracle."

Chances are Celski will be rehabilitating right up until his Olympic races. He hopes to compete at least once before that, perhaps in the junior world championships (he's still young enough), in January.

Moreau estimates Celski needs another four to six weeks for the muscle to heal to elite-athlete standards, when he can start on-ice training with the team. The big question: How quickly can he get in shape to race against the world's best?

"Hopefully, his base training from the summer will come back fast," said Olympic teammate Allison Baver, whose broken leg prompted a similar down-to-the-wire recovery in time for September's trials. "He definitely has time."

Working in his favor: Celski's youth, his fitness before the accident, and sublime feel for the ice. Baver said Celski can't get discouraged watching others skate fast as he takes baby steps.

"It's been a challenge for me so far, especially being so close to the Olympics and my goal," Celski said. "It's what keeps me motivated to get up. I've been training for this my whole life."