The new season is just round the corner and Patrick Singleton is ready to take his next large stride towards Winter Olympic skeleton success.

It has been a long, tough summer of training for the young athlete who believes he is in the best possible shape for the season which gets into full flow in the coming weeks.

After an unprecedented rookie appearance in last year?s Skeleton World Championships, Singleton seems to have successfully made the unlikely leap across the sporting chasm from luge ? feet-first flinging yourself down an icy track? to the head-first version.

Like so many individual sportsmen outside the traditionally-popular sports, the young Bermudian is finding it tough to make ends meet and was forced to work full-time in London this summer in pursuit of his dream.

But teaming up with the British skeleton competitors, who like Singleton are keen, talented but lacking the finances of some of the more historic winter-sport nations, the Bermudian has found an environment conducive to making large improvements while still being able to maintain gainful employment.

He has still found time, however, for a punishing training schedule with trips to Bath in the west of England at the weekend to work on the best dry-push facility in the world alongside sprint work with the Belgrave Harriers athletics team.

Driving the skeleton is not Singleton?s problem but his starts are lacking, leaving him unable to truly compete with the world?s best in the sport ? at the moment.

But with all this push and sprint training ? alongside his gym work ? he is feeling confident for the year ahead.

?I know driving-wise I can compete with the best in the world,? said Singleton, briefly back in Bermuda for a series of meeting with sports administrators to work out funding and logistics for his push towards the Winter Olympics in Turin 2006.

?But my starts have always let me down. However, I am delighted with the way training has gone this summer and I am feeling really good about this season.

?Last winter I was happy with my training and performances during the actual season but I didn?t really have a summer behind me. This year it is going to be different.

?The work I have been doing is crucial to my success and I feel with the improvements in sprinting technique and the work on my push I will be really be able to compete with the top guys.?

Singleton is off to Lillehammer in a couple of weeks to begin his intensive ice training before competition begins in earnest in Innsbruck, Austria in mid-November.

One eye will constantly be on the World Championships in Calgary in February, with that competition carrying the same qualification structure as the Olympics the following year.