In 2006, the U.S. only qualified one woman for skeleton at the Torino Olympics. Katie Uhlaender competed, finishing sixth.

Noelle Pikus-Pace, the 2005 World Cup overall champion, should have been there too. But in mid-October 2005, she was rammed by a bobsled that didn’t brake in time as she stood in the outrun of the Calgary track and suffered a compound fracture in her lower right leg. She was competing again by December but was unable to collect enough World Cup points to help the U.S. qualify two athletes for the 2006 Games.

Barring illness or injury, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games should a different story for the U.S. women’s skeleton team. If they keep sliding like they have been, at least two U.S. women will qualify. And maybe even three.

Only the top two countries in the World Cup rankings as of January 20, 2010, will qualify three women for the Vancouver Games. Four countries will qualify two athletes, and six countries will qualify one.

“It’s a tough one,” said U.S. slider Rebecca Sorensen, who finished 13^th at the second World Cup in Lake Placid today and sits in 17^th overall. “Germany and Canada have three amazing girls.”

After the first two World Cup races of the 2009/10 season, Mellisa Hollingsworth, Amy Gough, and Michelle Kelley from Canada are ranked 1-3-5, respectively. Hollingsworth won both runs of the Lake Placid World Cup. Germany’s top woman, Marion Trott, finished third at Lake Placid, while teammate Anja Huber won the season’s first World Cup at Park City last week.

But Huber fell to 13^th in the season rankings after missing the Lake Placid World Cup. Five days before the race, she walked down the dirt road next to the icy track at Lake Placid’s Olympic Sports Complex and twisted her ankle.

Huber flew back to Germany earlier this week, and the German coaches would not comment on her condition. But teammate Frank Rommel, who won the men’s skeleton race today, said that he spoke with her yesterday.

“She was optimistic that she can be there in the next race,” he said. World Cup #3 is slated for the first weekend in December in Italy.

“Everybody was shocked,” he added. “When you hear somebody scream by walking [next to] the track. It’s quite tough for all of us.”

“From my experience, it’s not what happens on the track, it’s what happens outside the track, that’s the dangerous part,” Pikus-Pace said, laughing, but added that she is looking forward to Huber’s return.

Although Huber’s misfortune could benefit the U.S. women’s skeleton team as far as Olympic qualification, it’s not the Germans that the U.S. skeleton athletes should be worried about. It’s the British.

If the Olympic teams were named now — rather than on January 20, 2010 — the Brits would be sending Shelley Rudman, Amy Williams, and Donna Creighton, who stand 2-4-12, respectively, in the rankings.

Still, Sorensen is optimistic.

“As long as USA 3 can beat all the other country’s number 3s … ,” she said, when asked what it will take for her to make the U.S. Olympic team. Sorensen is currently the U.S. team’s third-ranked slider behind Pikus-Pace (8^th) and Uhlaender (11^th).

And as long as no one else twists an ankle.