Fresh off a silver in slopestyle, New Zealand's Zoi Sadowski-Synnott looked right at home Saturday in slopestyle qualifying at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, advancing to Tuesday's final as the top rider — just as she did four years ago on her way to gold at the Beijing Games.

The reigning world champion went huge; her first run featured a textbook frontside 1080 — the day's highest-scored individual (9.90) — and her second, the better of the two, included a cleaned-up rainbow boardslide to front lipslide pretzel 270 out and an upgraded backside 1260 for an 88.08.

RESULTS

Americans Lily Dhawornvej and Jessica Perlmutter made the 12-rider cut in 10th and 11th. After falls on the top features in their first runs, both cleaned things up on their seconds: Perlmutter nailed the opening rail to score a 68.58, while Dhawornvej dialed it back on rails and delivered on jumps with a cab 900 followed by back-to-back frontside and backside 720s for a 69.90.

Japan's Kokomo Murase, who beat Sadowski-Synnott for gold in last week's slopestyle contest, recorded the second-best qualifying run, linking a frontside double cork 900 truck driver, a cab 900 and a backside 1080 on the jump line for an 84.93. Slopestyle bronze medalist Yu Seung-Eun of South Korea posted the No. 3 score with a 76.80, while Murase's teammate Leila Iwabuchi and Austria's Anna Gasser placed 4th and 5th.

Great Britain's Mia Brookes, champion at January's Winter X Games and the 2023 World Championships, finished 16th and did not advance.

The contest was originally scheduled for Monday, but on Saturday night the decision was made to bump the event up a day to Sunday.

"I was pretty stressed when I found out that they were going to bring qualis a day forward," Sadowski-Synnott said. "But those changes come with our sport. We deal with the weather so much, so we just had to roll with it."

Women's snowboard slopestyle qualifiers

  1. Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, New Zealand (88.08)
  2. Kokomo Murase, Japan (84.93)
  3. Yu Seung-Eun, South Korea (76.80)
  4. Leila Iwabuchi, Japan (73.65)
  5. Anna Gasser, Austria (73.50)
  6. Ally Hickman, Australia (71.41)
  7. Mari Fukada, Japan (71.03)
  8. Annika Morgan, Germany (69.53)
  9. Laurie Blouin, Canada (69.30)
  10. Lily Dhawornvej, United States (69.90)
  11. Jessica Perlmutter, United States (68.58)
  12. Juliette Pelchat, Canada (68.25)