Medal eases pain

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Speedskater J.R. Celski keeps the photo on his iPhone, a reminder of the past five months.

He has a bloody gash cutting across his thigh all the way to the bone, where his skate sliced open his leg in a gruesome spill at the U.S. speedskating trials.

Celski wound up in the emergency room and asked an anesthesiologist to take a photo. On Sunday, a day after he won the bronze medal in the short-track 1,500 meters at the Vancouver Olympics, he displayed the picture with a measure of pride.

“I guess the moments when we’re down and out are the moments when we learn the most about ourselves,” he said. “When I was laying out on the ice, I was in defeat at first. I thought my whole career was over. I guess in those moments we truly define ourselves. I pushed forward and I knew I could do it. I guess that’s why I recovered so fast.”

Now, the pain has been erased by utter joy. After learning the bronze medal was his, he donned an American flag like a cape and leaped – Superman-like with a single bound – into the arms of Olympic teammate Apolo Anton Ohno.

The final was thrilling, with Lee Jung-su of South Korea taking the gold medal after teammates Sung Si-bak and Lee Ho-suk crashed into one another on the final turn. That gave Ohno the silver and Celski his bronze.

It was Ohno’s sixth Olympic medal, tying speedskater Bonnie Blair’s record as the winningest U.S. Winter Olympian.

Celski, a 19-year-old from Federal Way, Wash., began inline skating at age 3 and switched to the ice after seeing Ohno win at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. Ohno is from the same Seattle suburb and was friends with Celski’s brothers growing up.

Celski went on to win gold medals in the 3,000 meters and 5,000 relay to go with a pair of bronzes in the 1,000 and 1,500 at last year’s world championships. He finished second overall at the meet in Austria, where Ohno earned a silver in the 1,000 and was fourth in the 3,000.

“He’s been kind of a phenom in the sport,” Ohno recently told the Associated Press. “He’s very, very young. A ton of potential.”

His dream of being America’s next Ohno was almost snuffed by the accident at the trials in Marquette, Mich. He slid into the boards feet-first, with his right foot jamming into his left thigh on impact. His long skate blade sliced deep, missing his femoral artery by about an inch.

He spent six weeks on crutches, his rehabilitation overseen by orthopedic surgeon Eric Heiden, who won five long-track speedskating gold medals at the 1980 Olympics.

Celski will also skate in the 1,000 meters and the 5,000 relay in Vancouver. The 1,500 was his first competition since the accident.

“Right when I got back on the ice I was really hesitant, especially going fast. Yeah, I had flashbacks, of course,” he said. “I actually fell on the ice in practice. I needed that to mentally prepare myself for what could happen in the future.”

But he had no fear Saturday night.

“I didn’t think about my leg the whole time,” he said.