With only the top five men from each of the two heats earning a place in Saturday’s finals, Porteous wasted no time punching his ticket, landing a score of 96.00 from a possible 100 points on his first of two runs.
"There was no margin for error," Porteous said after landing one of the biggest qualifying runs of his career.
His run included one the biggest tricks in his bag, the double 1620.
"After looking at the start list, I knew I had to go harder than normal but I got the run down I wanted and I’m really happy with how things are going."
Porteous had an outstanding 2020-21 season, landing on the podium in every event he dropped into and earning himself the world championship title.
He was the first halfpipe freeskier to land a combination of a right 1620 into a left 1620
in competition which has defined the international progression in halfpipe skiing for the past eight months.
In the final, Porteous will be up against a strong United States contingent led by Aaron Blunck, who was the top qualifier in heat one and who already has three world cup victories to his name at this venue.
With PyeongChang 2018 silver medallist Alex Ferreira qualifying just one and a-half points behind Porteous in heat two, his will be another name to watch.
Porteous’ older brother, Miguel, took a more conservative and strategic approach to his day due to a recent knee injury.
With his main focus achieving a top-16 result in order to keep him on track towards qualifying for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, Miguel Porteous got the job done with a seventh-place finish. It was outside of finals qualification but ticked a box for his longer-term plans.
Wanaka athletes Ben Harrington and Gustav Legnavsky also put together strong performances which will help to progress their own Olympic qualifying campaigns. Harrington finished seventh in heat two while youngest member of the New Zealand squad, 16-year-old Legnavsky, finished in 10th place.
Chloe McMillan (Hamilton) finished 28th and Anja Barugh (Wanaka) 30th in the women’s qualifying round.
The men’s finals are scheduled to begin tomorrow at 8.30am (NZ time).
