Patrick Singleton moved a step closer to qualifying for the Winter Olympics next year with a second-placed finish in Lake Placid, USA, yesterday.

The Bermudian was taking part in an international invitiational race and only needs to finish in races tomorrow, and Friday, to secure his place in pre-qualifying.

Singleton finished second to American Luke Schultz, who's overall time was 1:57.39, the US regionals champion who was competing on his home track. And Singleton's overall time of 1:58.52 was all the more impressive considering it came on a track he has labelled "his least favourite run in the world".

Once he has secured his pre-qualifying spot, Singleton will then train throughout the summer before the business of trying to qualify for the Games in Vancouver next February begins in earnest in November.

Between November and Mid-January the skeleton racer will compete on the sport's top circuit as he attempts to win as many world ranking points as possible. It will be those points that determine whether he will get one of the 30 spots available at the Olympics.

It will be a tough battle for the Bermudian who will go it alone against better funded teams from countries such as the UK and USA, both of whom will be trying to get three spots for their athletes.

Not that the pressure is anything new to the man who has represented Bermuda at three Winter Olympics. He first raced at Nagano in the Luge in 1998, and competed at Salt Lake City in the same event four years later. He switched to skeleton and provided one of the iconic images of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino when he attended the opening cermony wearing his Bermuda shorts while everyone else was wearing heavy skiing jackets, gloves and woolly hats.

"I will have to perform and compete at a very high level for four months," said Singleton. "All the other teams will resent me because I'm one man who can take a place from a programme that devotes a lot of time and money to the sport.

"They'll all be looking to knock me out of it, and there's going to be a lot of pressure on me from the start."

Unlike many Olympic sports, there are no wildcards in skeleton, there are no athletes who pre-qualify, and the organisers do not care if you come from a small sub-tropical Island in the Atlantic, or from the US. It's all about the eight best times you put together before January.

Given the conditions Singleton is working under, his preparation over the summer will be essential. In the past he has trained with the British side in the build- up to an Olympic year, and he hopes to do so again this time around.

"At the moment I'm trying to arrange to train with the British team in the summer. They have one of the top three sides in the world in skeleton and their training programme is fantastic.

"Preparation over the summer is key, you have to build-up your fitness so that when the four months of competing comes around you can stay strong in difficult circumstances. When the season starts you have a different race, in a different place every week, and it is difficult to stay at optimal fitness in those circumstances."

While fitness is important, the key to a good skeleton race is the start. In Lake Placid Schultz's pushed off half-a-second faster at the start which in race terms equates to a full 2.5 seconds faster on the run.

"The important thing in skeleton is the start," said Singleton. "I've improved a lot, but I think working over the summer with the British team will help me improve it all the more."