Segree pleased with skeleton progress

Audra Segree continues to make progress to becoming the first Jamaican woman to compete in the skeleton in the Winter Olympic Games.

The former Holmwood Technical track athlete lowered her time to 58 seconds at a recent training camp in Lake Placid, New York, earlier this month.

Segree, who took up the event last year after she represented the country at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games where she was a reserve for the historic two-woman bobsled team, had a previous best of 1:02.00 minutes from last year.

The 28-year-old said she is learning new ways to manoeuvre the sled and she believes she will make the cut to compete at the 2022 Olympic Games.

“Right now I am way better than when I started,” Segree told STAR Sports. “It was difficult because the track was somewhat different, so it took me a little bit of time to adjust. But after getting familiar with the track, I started to get better push times and finish times and learning new tricks how to steer.

“I didn’t learn steering at the first camp because I was relatively new and they just give you the basics, but now I am learning more. I have improved my start from 5.8 to 5.6 and also my finishing time so my recent training camp was a big success.”

Segree needs to be ranked in the top 25 in the world in order to make the final cut to the 2022 Games. And though she is not yet in the top 30, she believes she will accumulate enough points before the games to move into the top 25.

“I don’t have any doubt I will make it. I just need to stay on the path that I am on and continue to improve. I have to get some more runs in because that will improve my time and stay positive,” Segree said.