Winter Olympic gold medallist Jamie Anderson and world No2 Yuki Kadono set the standard on the opening day of the Winter Games yesterday.
Anderson (USA) and Kadono (Japan) topped the women's and men's qualifying respectively in the snowboard slopestyle world cup.
Olympic champion Anderson surprised no-one by sealing No1 spot in the women's competition with a score of 83.80, more than 10 points clear of the next two competitors, Laurie Blouin (Canada) and Elena Koenz (Switzerland), on her first run.
Anderson nailed a half-cab tap, a frontside boardslide, transfer to frontside lipslide, a boardslide pole jam 270 out, backside 540 mute, switch backside 540 indy and a frontside 720 indy on her run.
''The course is really fun,'' she said after qualifying.
''There's a really sick rail line. It's super-creative, and really good jumps.''
Promising boarder Zoi Sadowski Synnott was the best of the New Zealanders in 14th, but only the top six progressed to tomorrow's finals.
Kadono also wasted no time in the men's competition, posting the day's high score of 90.00 on his opening run.
On the six-feature course, Kadono combined a Miller flip lipslide 270 out, a Hardway 270 boardslide, a 50/50 pole jam backside 180 out, a cab 9 underflip, a frontside 1080 indy, and a backside 1080 mute.
Despite a 30-minute delay for a breeze to die down, Kadono had high praise for Cardrona.
''I come here every year because they always do a good job of shaping and maintaining the course,'' Kadono said.
''It's a little tight but it's better to begin the season this way than with a massive course.''
Carlos Garcia Knight, from Christchurch, held second place after a strong first run (86.25) but was just squeezed into fourth place after the final runs by Japan's Keita Inamura and Canada's Michael Ciccarelli.
Garcia Knight still came out smiling and was rapt to be one of the 10 men heading to the finals.
''I'm so happy with my runs, especially since my first one was probably the best I've ever done,' he said.
''My second run was good. I definitely stepped it up on the last trick, which could be better.''
