It's crunch time for athletes trying to score a spot on Team USA for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games, and one of them is 25-year-old Leslie Stratton.
She's hails from New Hampshire, but Texas Connects Us to the northern athlete's Olympic dream.
Stratton struggles to describe the sport she loves so much.
"It's hard to explain. I always say it's kind of like a roller coaster. It's the closest thing to flying I've ever felt," Stratton said.
She's talking about skeleton, where athletes pilot a small sled face-first down an icy track at approximately 80 miles an hour.
"The adrenaline is just huge," Stratton said.
Winning in skeleton is a matter of the smallest details.
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"You win or lose races by a hundredth of a second," Stratton said. "That's the difference between going to an Olympics and not."
Stratton says making Team USA for the upcoming Olympics in PyeongChang is her goal. "Going to Korea is everything," she said.
So in her quest for an edge, Stratton has traveled to Michael Johnson Performance in McKinney. The world-class training facility is the brainchild of North Texas Olympic legend Michael Johnson.
"It's fantastic. They see things that I can't see," Stratton said.
Stratton says even the North Texas heat makes her stronger.
"It almost makes you feel like you get more out of a workout, because you sweat more. I know that makes no sense. But I'm getting used to it slowly," she said.
