Top qualifier, Joss Christensen, throws down amid early morning training. Photo by Nate Abbott.

32 athletes. 15 nations. Beautiful weather. Slushy course. Huge crowd. Olympics. This morning’s slopestyle qualifier was a heated one. With finals kicking off shortly, we’ve only got a short time to provide some notes:

– Goepper went down on run 1. It was awesome to see him stomp his second run under pressure. The Goepper family is out in full force today. They were certainly stoked to see Nick advance to the final.
– Bobby went down on run 1, as well. It was a huge relief to see him put down his second. Bobby was eventually bumped to 12th place, though—the bubble spot—and we watched anxiously as a handful of competitors took their second laps through the course. Alas, his score held, and we’ll see him in the final.
– Harlaut also went down on run 1. He put down his second under pressure, too. Very impressive. On his second jump, however, Harlaut barely managed to squeak his trick around. Looked like he had some speed issues, perhaps. The switch butter is tough to pull off given today’s soft snow conditions.
– Beaulieu-Marchand also put down a run 2, after going down on run 1. A common theme today, eh?
– Joss Christensen is crushing it. He stomped both runs. He earned a 91 and change for his first go round, and 93.20 on his second. I overheard Brown in the finish corral say something along the lines of, ‘I think Joss has a great chance of winning. He’s skiing so well today. His run is amazing.’
– We saw Brown toss a triple on the final jump, on his first run. After going down on the first rail up top, Bobby skied down and had a good showing on the jumps—some nice warm up for run 2. We also saw a triple out of Tribondeau.
– We have yet to see triples out of the other competitors, but you can bet your bottom dollar that we’ll see a few more come finals.

Advancing to finals:

1. Joss Christensen (USA) 93.20
2. Andreas Håtveit (NOR) 88.00
3. James Woods (GBR) 87.20
4. Nick Goepper (USA) 87.00
5. Gus Kenworthy (USA) 86.40
6. Alex Beaulieu-Marchand (CAN) 85.60
7. Russel Henshaw (AUS) 84.60
8. Øystein Bråten (NOR) 84.20
9. Aleks Aurdal (NOR) 83.80
10. Jossi Wells (NZL) 83.40
11. Henrik Harlaut (SWE) 83.20
12. Bobby Brown (USA) 83.00