A weather window was taken this morning by the Audi quattro Winter Games NZ organisers to run the ladies' halfpipe qualifications at 2018 FIS Freestyle Skiing Junior World Championships. 19 ladies lined up for their two runs on Cardrona's superpipe with the top eight making the finals. 

Estonian Kelly Sildaru came out on top with a 6 point lead after her two solid runs. "I feel very excited," said a happy Sildaru. "The pipe was super good today and the weather is not the best, but I am happy that we managed to do our qualifications!"

Second-placed Russian Valeriya Demidova was keeping Sildaru in her sights. Both her side flairs had high amplitude and had nicely executed spins with grabs and a technical switch to switch alley-oop 540 combination at the bottom of her run. The execution of her run had her close but ultimately it was Sildaru's amplitude, grabs and technique riding the half pipe that kept her above the rest.

Zhang Kexin from China was third-placed qualifier and showed strong skiing with a back to back 540 with the same switch to switch combination as Demidova at the bottom of the pipe and showed good amplitude. 

The halfpipe finals are planned for Tuesday, September 4. 

Top qualifying run 

Kelly Sildaru: Alley-oop tailgrab into a right cork five mute grab into a straight air safety grab into a left alley-oop 540 tail grab into a left 540 tail grab into a right side 720 tail grab finishing with switch left 720 safety grab. 

Source: fis-ski.com