Weather delivers halfpipe blow

The snowboard halfpipe qualification round on Wednesday at the Yabuli Ski Resort saw Japan's Sara Shimizu and the Republic of Korea's Kim Geonhui taking the top spots in the women's and men's events respectively.

In the women's event, of the 10 participants, five are ranked in the FIS top 10, but 15-year-old Shimizu dominated with a score of 98.00 points.

Shimizu is the youngest competitor in the event, but showed remarkable skill and maturity to earn the highest score in the second run. The fearless teen, who won silver at last year's Winter Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon, Republic of Korea, was the only athlete to attempt the challenging backside 900 rotation.

Sena Tomita who won women's halfpipe bronze at the Beijing Winter Olympics finished second at the qualification round with a score of 93.75 points.

"The Chinese athletes are our strongest competitors. We all know each other well, because we often compete together at international events," Tomita said.

China's Wu Shaotong, Cai Xuetong, Liu Yibo and Yang Lu all qualified for the finals, with Harbin native Wu in third place with a score of 86.50 points.

Cai also feels at home on the course at Yabuli.

"The course is all too familiar to me, because I've been training on it since I first started competing in the halfpipe. The place where I keep warm during training is still here," Cai said. "It's good to be back."

Cai made her Winter Olympics debut in Vancouver, Canada, in 2010 in the women's halfpipe event as the youngest athlete in the competition. She has continued to improve over the years, securing halfpipe gold at the FIS Snowboard World Championships in Kreischberg, Austria, in 2015, in Sierra Nevada in the US in 2017 and Bakuriani, Georgia, in 2023.

It was a bad day for Japan's Kudo Rise, gold medalist at last year's Winter Youth Olympics. She failed to make the finals following two error-filled runs.