Of all the sports in the Winter Olympics, few are as terrifying — or aptly named — as skeleton. Similar to luge, the sliding sport requires athletes to race down a steep, frozen track, navigating hairpin turns at extreme speeds while lying on a tiny metal sled with no brakes or built-in steering mechanisms. Also, skeleton racers go down headfirst. Sara Roderick, a 2015 University of Vermont alum and South Burlington resident, is one of the nation’s premier women’s skeleton athletes. In March, she won the USA Bobsled/Skeleton National Championships in women’s skeleton, and she’s currently training with Team USA in hopes of qualifying for the 2026 Winter Olympics. The 30-year-old aims to be ranked among the top 15 women skeleton athletes in the world this year — she’s currently unranked after missing most of last season due to injury. “To win the national championship was really cool and special,” Roderick said. “I had some really good runs, became a lot more confident in decision making and just was able to see the bigger picture.” As a member of UVM’s track team, Roderick excelled in the heptathlon: a combination of 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, the 200-meter dash, long jump, javelin throw and the 800-meter run. It was Roderick’s track coach who encouraged her to try skeleton after the two watched one of his former athletes compete in the televised 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The coach offered Roderick access to the skeleton track in Lake Placid, N.Y., the site of the 1980 Winter Olympics. Taken by the exhilarating ride, she’s stuck with the sport ever since. Roderick’s sprinting skills translate well from the track to the ice. At the start of a skeleton run, a racer sprints with one hand pushing their sled for about 50 meters to build momentum before diving on board and bombing down the track. Team USA sliding coach Caleb Smith said Roderick is “one of the fastest starters in the world.” “That gives her that advantage going into curve one,” Smith said. Running is “one of her top strengths historically, and over the last few years, she has really started to bring the sliding piece right up there to match it.” Sliding technique often involves simply letting gravity take over, Roderick said. Reaching top speeds of 83 miles per hour on straightaways, she lies face down on the sled as…