Former track and field athlete Audra Segree is not allowing her so-called lack of size and weight to keep her from fully making use of her talent in winter sports.

After a less than desired start to her season earlier this week at the North American Cup Skeleton Park City 2020/21 series in Utah, USA, she was hoping for better results as the season went on.

At five feet, three inches tall and weighing 140lbs, the former Holmwood Technical sprinter was told she was not big enough to be the brakewoman in the bobsled event, and so after the second season in 2018, a decision was made for her to switch to the skeleton.

The curiously named event, sees the athlete taking off at full speed at the top of a down hill course with curves and turns, carved out of ice and just short of 1500m, head first on a sled weight just under 80lbs, between 31 and 47 inches long and 18 inches wide.

How does a Jamaican woman decide to take up the skeleton, of all the events?

“When I started bobsled it was said that I was too ‘small’ in body weight at the moment to be a brakewoman, even though I was fast at the back of the sled… the sled also need weight at the back,” she told the Jamaica Observer on Friday.

“So after the 2018 Winter Olympics, Coach Jo Manning, along with Dudley Stokes, decided that I should try skeleton at the lake placid bobsled and skeleton school in 2018, which I did and that’s where everything started,” she explained.

Segree, who was a part of several ISSA Champs winning Holmwood Technical teams, admitted that taking up the dangerous sport was not an easy decision.

“No it’s not easy, I’m more exposed than a bobsledder. It’s very different, take a lot of time to get use to,” she said. “I had to be patient and understanding and having a strong mindset.”

In her first series of three runs between Tuesday and Thursday, Segree rebounded from being disqualified in the first run to posting times of 1:49.05 minutes in the second race and 1:51.42 finishing at the back of the pack both days.

Despite admitting she had a lot of work to do to be among the top finishers, she said being away from the track for two years and not having enough training time cost her.

“No, I’m not satisfied with the results,” she said. “But I won’t be hard on myself, being that the last time I slid on Park City track was in 2019, so I had a lot of cobweb to clean out and that wasn’t enough over two days of training before competing,” noted Segree.

The biggest things, she pointed out, that need fixing were: “My exit out of curves six, 12 and 13, which were my troublesome areas.”

She added there were some positives nonetheless. “Despite getting DQ [disqualified] for the first race day, I’m proud to still manage to got the fourth fastest start time and getting faster down times from my previous times in 2019,” she said.

While she started the sport in 2017, Segree is still to get a full season in.

“However, my improvement over the time could have been greater, but I am still working on those challenges.”

Given her natural speed that saw her run 7.18 seconds over the 60m and 11.30 seconds in the 100m, Segree said the best part of her race “would be the start and also when I got the right steer in the double pressure curves and not getting any hit”.

“I need to work on being consistent in both runs,” she said.