Celski back on track 2 months after scary crash

By RACHEL COHEN AP Sports Writer

J.R. Celski could hear his mother screaming.

The 19-year-old rising star had crashed right in front of his parents during the U.S. short track speedskating championships Sept. 12, and the first few inches of his right skate blade sliced into his left leg near the knee. The blade cut through the muscle to the bone, spilling blood on the ice.

“I look down and I see this thing I’ve never seen before in my life: It’s like a rainbow assortment of colors,” Celski said Wednesday in New York. “I put my head back and said, ‘It’s over; it’s done.”’

Less than two months after the terrifying accident, Celski is confident he’ll be ready to compete in February’s Vancouver Olympics.

After surgery and six weeks on crutches, he’s preparing to return to the ice soon. Celski is working on his rehab with Dr. Eric Heiden, who won five gold medals in speedskating at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics before becoming an orthopedic surgeon.

“It makes me confident and I trust him,” Celski said. “He’s a very trustworthy guy, and he’s been doing this for a long time. He’s been in my position with skating before and he knows what injuries are.”

The greatest challenge physically has been regaining the full range of motion in his leg. The greatest challenge mentally will be pushing the memories of the crash out of his head.

“I didn’t go into shock, so I remember every feeling of pain that I had,” Celski said. “Everything before the surgery was very intense for me.”

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FINE-TUNING: A few more tweaks, and Lindsey Vonn will be good to go.

The two-time defending overall World Cup champion - and gold medal favorite for the Vancouver Games - is closing in on the ideal race setup for her new slalom skis, estimating she’s at a “7 or an 8” out of 10.

“I feel like I could have a race setup tomorrow if I needed to, but I definitely feel like I could still improve. Fine-tune the setup and get every tenth of a second out of my skis and boots that I can,” Vonn said Wednesday.

“That’s pretty much the final piece of the puzzle,” she added. “Once that’s figured out, I think I’ll be really ready to continue on with the season.”

Vonn made the risky decision to switch from Rossignol to Head in the offseason. She had won her World Cup titles on Rossignol skis, but the struggling French supplier asked its athletes to accept 50 percent cuts in their endorsement deals. Instead, Vonn signed a five-year deal with Head.

Vonn has been happy with the equipment so far. She’s “all dialed in” with her setups for downhill and giant slalom, and she opened the World Cup season with a respectable ninth-place finish in the GS - her worst event - two weeks ago. Her slalom setup still needs some work because the snow conditions in Europe last month weren’t ideal for testing. But she returned this week to Vail, where conditions were better.

Vonn will be in Vail until Tuesday, when she leaves for a slalom race in Levi, Finland.

“It’s going to be a great prep for Levi, and hopefully I can get everything dialed in 100 percent,” she said. “I’m trying to find the exact model and race setup that I want. So far it’s going really well, so I’m just going to keep testing and narrowing things down.”

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ATTENTION GETTER: Biathletes must balance the adrenaline-rushing intensity of cross-country skiing with the quiet calm needed for rifle marksmanship. Dr. Ross Flowers, a USOC sports psychologist, helps the American team train by doing his best to distract them.

“He’ll be yelling out our names,” said 2006 Olympian Lowell Bailey, “and saying, ‘Lowell Bailey, you’re going to miss these five shots! This is the last shot to determine whether you get an Olympic medal! Are you going to hit it?”’

Bailey is relieved that other kinds of distractions haven’t been a problem the last four years. He said the national governing body and the USOC have provided the resources to allow the athletes to focus fully on their training, as they look to improve on a strong ninth-place finish in the relay at the 2006 Turin Games.

“We surprised a lot of people, a lot of the American fans, and for the first time I remember thinking, ‘OK, we can actually medal now. We have four years to really buckle down,”’ Bailey said. “It’s been a great four-year progression. That was really the first time and definitely a motivating experience.”

Bailey believes the U.S. teams in smaller sports like biathlon will benefit the most from having the Olympics in North America.

“We compete 99 percent of the time on the World Cup circuit in Central Europe and Russia. There’s a huge fan base there, but it’s still relatively unknown in North America,” he said. “Having the Olympics - it’s almost home-court advantage, not quite, but almost - that’s a big deal, and I think it will create a lot of interest in our sport.”

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LET ME IN: One of the perks of hosting the Olympics is home-field advantage, and the Canadians are making full use of it.

Some athletes and national Olympic officials have complained about training opportunities at the Vancouver venues, saying they’ve been given less access than Canadian athletes. American skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender went so far as to call the restrictions “rude.”

“It’s been a little bit of a problem with the oval,” speedskater Chad Hedrick acknowledged Wednesday. “We’ve been limited to just a couple of times for training camps and other things. The Canadians, on the other hand, have had a significant amount of time to go and practice.

“It just seems like they’ve spent quite a bit more time than everybody else there, and I think everyone should have equal time.”

This is hardly a new issue. Venues aren’t shrink-wrapped before the games begin, and it stands to reason that the athletes who are the closest - i.e., the home team - will have the most access. But it stands out a little more for American athletes when the venues are in the United States’ backyard.

Canada has also made no secret of its desire to dominate in Vancouver, with its “Own the Podium” program.

“It’s not a unique situation to this Olympic Games,” said Mike English, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s chief of sport performance. “That home-field advantage is something any home nation is going to try and safeguard.

“The important piece is, our athletes are able to get access to the venues” in Vancouver, English added, “and we know how hard they’re training in the States.”

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ADDING ON: Kayla Harrison’s silver medal at last month’s junior world judo championships could be a good omen.

Harrison is only the second American to win two medals at the judo junior worlds. The other? Ronda Rousey, who went on to win the bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics.

Harrison finished second to Japan’s Akari Ogata at 78 kilograms. The 19-year-old from Wakefield, Mass., had won the title in the division last year.

“She came up short in the finals, but it is clearly a great accomplishment,” U.S. coach Serge Bouyssou said.

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OLYMPIC RINGS: Defending champion Brazil will play Cuba, Spain and Tunisia in the opening round of the men’s volleyball world championships, which will be held Sept. 24-Oct. 10 at 10 cities in Italy. The United States, which won the Olympic gold medal in Beijing, drew Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico in the opening round. … Olympic gold medal gymnast Shannon Miller is a mom. Miller gave birth Oct. 28 to John Rocco Falconetti, her first child with husband John Falconetti.

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AP National Writer Nancy Armour contributed to this report.