Torino still goal for sledder

CALGARY — One day after suffering a compound fracture of her lower right leg, the defending World Cup Skeleton champion and Utah native Noelle Pikus-Pace vowed she'll do everything in her power to be ready for the Olympics in Torino in 112 days.

"I'm still going to give it my best and try and get back out on my sled for the second half of the season, and hopefully there still is the possibility of going to Torino," Pikus-Pace said from her hospital bed Thursday in a radio interview with KSL's Tom Kirkland.

Pikus-Pace just completed a run at the Calgary Olympic Park when an American four-man bobsled slammed into her and two other sliders when the bobsled overran the stop area.

"They (the doctors) said it was really a clean cut and my bones are really strong partially probably from being an athlete," Pikus-Pace said. "They have high hopes of me recovering much more quickly than the average person."

Instead of focusing on what happened, Pikus-Pace said the accident could have been much worse than just a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula.

"I'm so blessed because so many circumstances could have happened when I got hit by the bobsled," she said. "I'm fortunate I didn't have any head injuries and it was just my leg."

Pikus-Pace underwent successful surgery Wednesday night and a titanium rod was inserted in the leg to support the bones during the healing process.

Pikus-Pace and her husband, Janson, who flew in with her mother immediately after hearing of the accident, remain optimistic.

"By having a good positive attitude it's going to get me healed so much quicker," she said. "I don't think this is a negative thing necessarily. It's going to make me stronger."

Pikus-Pace anticipates being on crutches for the next four weeks, but it could be as many as six, and she will most likely have intense rehabilitation in either Cincinnati or Colorado Springs.

"She's not giving up, and there's a definite positive attitude the whole way through and just the understanding that things like this happen and she doesn't have the attitude of 'poor me, why me'," Janson said. "There is a reason for everything. She's trying to grow from this experience and make the best of it."

Just before the accident, Pikus-Pace said they heard something coming down the track but didn't know it was a bobsled. After seeing it they still underestimated its speed, and it clipped her just before she could leap out of the track.