Park City » Ted Ligety is walking backward, slowly and uphill, on one of the high-tech treadmills lined up against the wall of the U.S. Ski Team's new Center for Excellence, not far from a giant color photo hanging high on the wall that shows him doing pretty much the exact opposite -- blasting through a savage turn on narrow skis, his hips a breathtaking fraction of an inch from the steep, icy slope beneath him.

"Too bad I can't see the TV," he says.

Alas, even rehab has its perils.

For the record, Ligety could get a better look at one of the dozen or more new flat-screens that populate the sprawling workout area in the new $22.5 million complex just off U.S. Highway 40 at Quinn's Junction east of Park City, if only he could turn around. But he can't -- not if he wants his injured right knee to heal properly in time for perhaps the biggest season of his young career, with the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in Canada looming just eight months away.

One of the world's best skiers, the 24-year-old Ligety is working through the first serious injury of his career, damaged ligaments in his knee that he suffered in a training crash at the U.S. Championships in Alaska nearly three months ago. That wasn't long after he claimed a bronze medal in the giant slalom at the 2009 World Championships to go with his gold from the combined at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

The Park City native was able to avoid surgery that would have required a much longer recovery, but had to wear a straight-leg brace for a month to allow his injured medial collateral and posterior cruciate ligaments to heal. Even after he shed the brace, Ligety had to wait another month or so before beginning a rehabilitation routine whose delicacy mocked the unchained aggression with which he has for years roared down the ski hill.

"It's not super-exciting," he said.

Not unless you get a thrill out of slow walks in the pool and standing on one leg.

That's the kind of thing with which Ligety began, though he has progressed to performing dozens of reps while lying on his side in an innovative leg-press machine -- it puts less stress on his knee than conventional squats -- and bouncing a ball off a trampoline while standing on a wobbly platform suspended by chains and rubber bands, in order to improve his balance and core strength.

He's hoping to graduate to more strenuous workouts soon, and plans to be ready to join the men's Alpine team when it departs for preseason training camps in New Zealand and Chile later this summer and fall, never mind the start of the World Cup season in October.

"At first, I was pretty anxious to know what was going on and what the recovery time would be," Ligety said. "Once I had the information, I was pretty confident that I would be good to go by the race season, and as things have progressed, I'm even more confident."

For the moment, though, he has to do without his normal summertime fitness rituals, such as playing basketball and tennis -- he remains a big Jazz fan -- and joining his friends on mountain-bike rides around Park City and Moab. He can't stress his knee too much too soon, which is why he has to walk on the treadmill backward, to avoid over-working his hamstring, which connects to his injured ligaments in the back of his knee.

"His concentration and focus has just changed during this period of time," said Richard Quincy, the medical director for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association.

Quincy said many elite athletes such as Ligety cross-train on their own during the offseason, without really realizing how much work they put into the things they enjoy. For Ligety, though, the regimen is now much more structured. He spends a couple of hours each day repeating his tedious drills to get stronger.

Which is where the new training center enters the picture. Having opened its doors to athletes barely a month ago, the facility brings together aspects of the ski team's training program that used to be scattered, with offices, training and medical facilities all together in one 85,000-square foot space.

The soaring walls of the state-of-the-art weight room are decorated with huge photos of great American skiers and snowboarders such as the one of Ligety, while an adjoining training room is equipped with the latest high-tech rehabilitation equipment, such as a single therapy pool that includes two underwater treadmills, a counter-current system for swimming in place and underwater cameras to monitor strides and strokes.

Across the floor, a kitchen to make Emeril blush promises to help athletes improve and understand their nutrition, before they wander down the hall to play basketball or volleyball on the regulation courts that sit next to a sleek wooden skateboard course for the snowboarders and a trampoline-and-harness set-up for the jumpers and aerialists.

"The center represents our heart and soul," USSA president and CEO Bill Marolt said.

In it, doctors, coaches and trainers can easily work with the athletes and one another without so much as leaving the building -- not always the case before. Federation officials believe the center will give the Americans a bigger boost for the 2014 Sochi Games in Russia and beyond, simply because athletes will be able to use it for entire quadrennials, rather than just the last few months before the Olympics.

But for Ligety, the rehab and training he's enduring there now might make all the difference. He figures to be a serious medal contender in Vancouver, after fairly surprising the field in the combined as a 21-year-old in Turin.

"There's more pressure for sure, but I don't think I'm going to approach that any differently than I would otherwise," he said. "There's more obligations you have to when you're one of the favorites, I guess, but I'm still concentrating on it and trying to make it like any other race. That's how I tried to come to the world championships and the last Olympics -- just try not to think about it as such a big deal, at least when you're there, and try to race the best you can and then take it from there and see how it goes."

mcl@sltrib.com