Speedskater J.R. Celski is ahead of schedule on comeback

J.R. Celski won't be eating turkey with his family in Federal Way on Thursday. But he has something to celebrate.

Celski, 19, has made remarkable progress from a horrifying short-track speedskating accident where his own skate blade severed his left quadriceps muscle to the bone during the Olympic trials on Sept. 12.

One of the U.S. team's top Olympic medal hopes — he defeated five-time Olympic medalist Apolo Ohno twice at trials — Celski is now racing to get ready for the Games that open Feb. 12 in Vancouver, B.C., just a few hours' drive from his hometown.

His muscle, sewn back together with 60 stitches in emergency surgery, is all but healed. The stitches are gone. He has full range of motion in his leg, where emergency surgery left a 6-inch smile of a scar above his knee. He has even skated, carefully, three times in the past eight days. The first time, it was 15 minutes. The third session, it was an hour.

At first, "It felt awkward," he said. "I wasn't really myself."

Next challenge: Getting back to a world-class fitness level. He won't train with the U.S. team, but will work at his own pace.

"I'm not that far off," he said. "I'm still pretty weak. I feel like I'll be back to full strength in a month, month-and-a-half."

Celski leaves Colorado Springs today for Salt Lake City, his adopted home and where the U.S. speedskating team is based. He has been in Colorado Springs, living in the Olympic Training Center dormitory, while rehabbing the injury eight hours a day, six days a week since mid-September.

While his U.S. teammates have been competing in World Cup races this fall and working on getting fast, Celski worked on healing fast. He's a remarkable three weeks ahead of schedule, said Bill Moreau, manager for the OTC's sports medicine clinics.

"It's amazing. It's hard to describe it so people can honestly appreciate the hurdle that he's overcome," Moreau said. "Nobody should count this guy out."

In Salt Lake, he'll be back in the care of a team led by Dr. Eric Heiden, the five-time Olympic speedskating champion and orthopedic surgeon.

On Nov. 16, Celski returned to the ice for the first time since the accident, when he fell during the 500-meter race and slammed into the rink's padded wall, driving his scalpel-sharp skate blade into his leg and leaving a pool of blood on the ice. Luckily, Celski had already compiled enough points to make the Olympic team.

Lacing up his skates again, Celski admits, felt "weird."

"It was a good feeling," he said. "At the same time there was a little something in the back of my head that was going, 'These things betrayed you two months ago.' "

That first day, wearing his racing helmet and speed suit, his skates felt too awkward for him to get into his racing crouch. He was able to resume a racing position by the second day. By the third session on Tuesday, the ice felt like home again.

Celski is qualified for the Olympic 1,000-meter and 1,500-meter individual races and is aiming to reclaim his spot on the three-person relay team, selected by coaches.

He'll try to get in a race before the Olympics, targeting early January for his first competition back. But Celski said there aren't many races to choose from. His first competition might well be the Olympic 1,500 meters, set for Feb. 15.

Winning an Olympic medal is still in the plans. And this year's Thanksgiving dinner, celebrated with his teammates, will have special meaning.

"I feel very, very blessed and thankful," he said.