Bermuda's Patrick Singleton has overcome incredible odds to earn a spot in next week's Skeleton world championships.

And the 29-year-old Winter Olympian has branded his qualification - earned despite the labyrinth of rules in the specialist extreme sport - the biggest achievement of his sporting life.

The combination of changing weather conditions and the excruciatingly complex and harsh qualifying rules at the sport's European Championships meeting in Altenberg at the weekend made the 29-year-old's achievement all the more impressive.

“My goal for the year was to qualify for the world championships and I can't believe I've done it,” enthused Singleton, who only began life on the skeleton in the past year.

“It is an unbelievably complicated system to meet the qualifying standard and there were only eight spots available. To secure a place with my last runs on the second day of competition is pretty amazing.

“It is a great feeling and, in many ways, to do this means more than qualifying for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

“I feel this has vindicated my decision to move to skeleton.”

Practice for the world championships begins in just six days time in K?nigssee, Germany, with Singleton now having to refocus from the elation of making the tournament and concentrate on the task ahead.

But his joy is very much justified considering the convoluted qualification procedures, which do little to encourage participants from smaller nations.

Every major nation is given automatic qualification spots but the bottom four nations from the World Cup schedule have to requalify for the major tournaments.

Two spots from each of the bottom nations were up for grabs at Altenberg, in the former East Germany, at the weekend with Singleton's success coming at the expense of sliders from Korea, Ireland and Croatia, among others. Needless to say he was the only qualifier from outside the obvious skeleton nations.

The heavy snow that had fallen all week subsided for the actual competition, meaning Singleton had to adjust to speeds of up to ten seconds faster on the track.

This led to him struggling on the four runs on day one and left him with an ice mountain to climb on the second day.

But climb it he did, qualifying by just a single point - although 90 minutes were spent biting nails while officials confirmed his runs were quick enough to give home one of the sacred spots.

A measure of the complexity of the regulations saw an Irish slider, who finished fourth in the last Olympics, not make it through to next week's event.

Singleton's success comes after picking up a fourth place in the Nagano Championships and he clearly is having no trouble making the transition from one dangerous sport to another.

And it his luge experience, claims Singleton, that has helped him through the tougher moments in his skeleton career.

“Without the luge, I don't think I would have qualified,” he added.

“Although it is a different discipline, the experience you get of competition, and the ability to deal with pressure and put in the right performance in the big races - that is something that I have picked up in the luge and can be transferred to the skeleton.

“When I was about to start the fourth run, I stood there at the top and I knew what I needed to do and I knew I could do it.”