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 highest-scored individual trick on the day at 9.90, and her second, the best of the two, had a cleaned-up rainbow boardslide to front lipslide pretzel 270 out and an upgraded backside 1260 for an 88.08.
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 second: 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 700s 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 76.80, while Murase's teammate Leila Iwabuchi and Austria's Anna Gasser placed 4th and 5th.
Brit Mia Brookes, champion at January's Winter X Games and the 2023 world championships, finished 16th and did not advance.