Norwegian and Canadian teams underline their claim for Olympic slopestyle medal

Riders from Norway and Canada have left an impressive mark during today's men slopestyle qualifiers with all four athletes of each team rocketing straight to the finals. The best 12 qualifiers will go for the first set of Olympic snowboard medals tomorrow morning at 10:00 LOC (2:00 CET).

A total of 37 riders which had battled through the qualifying process over the past couple of months to finally represent their countries on the big stage called the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games were ready to drop in a course which left nothing to be desired today.

Already two years ago, Schneestern, the Germany based company in charge for the design, had set new standards with the course set-up which allowed for creativity and individuality in each athletes run due to three multifaceted rail/jib/jump/butter features at the top of the course leading into the lower section of three multifaceted, boundary-pushing jumps.

And now, with the pinnacle event of the sport finally taking place, the course shaping crew had topped their game once again by crafting the course to a geometrical perfection so riders had tons of choices to put together a run which not only would impress the judges but also would earn them a spot in the finals.

With the qualifiers broken up into two heats with the best of two runs counting as usual, there wasn't much room for mistakes.

In heat 1, it was Norway's wunderkind Marcus Kleveland dealing best with the pressure as well as some tough wind conditions living up to the expectations with a 83.71 for his cab 270 on 270 off, gap to front 270, a gap back lipslide to fakie, switch backside 1080 indy, cab 1260 indy and a backside triple 1440 mute.

Starting as fifth into the qualifiers, the score of the 18-year-old who had not entered the official test event back in 2016 held out until the end with New Zealand's Carlos Garcia Knight being the only one to break the 80 points barrier with a 80.10 for his run which he wrapped up with a frontside double cork 1080 to backside 1260 tailgrab and a switch backside 1260 indy.

While Sebastien Toutant (CAN; 78.01) and Mons Roisland (NOR; 76.50) earned their final spots with their first run performance, Torgeir Bergrem (NOR; 75.45) and Niklas Mattsson (SWE; 73.53) could up the ante in their second attempt after having problems during their first run.

As a result, big names like 2013 slopestyle World Champion Roope Tonteri (FIN; 72.60) or Chris Corning (USA; 70.85) narrowly missed out the finals.

In heat two, the focus was – once again – on Mark McMorris who had fully recovered just in time from a brutal injury.

And the 2014 Bronze medallist didn't hold back: leading the pack after run one, the 24-year-old Canadian went all in landing a frontside bluntslide 270 out, hardway frontside 270 on, a backside 360 gap to 50-50, switch backside 1260 stale, a frontside double cork mute 1080 and a final backside triple 1440 indy.

McMorris was awarded with a 86.83, a score which was only beaten by his teammate Max Parrot who earned a 87.36 for his clean run consisting of a hardway frontside 270 on, backside 270 on to 270 off, half cab on 360 off, cab double cork 1260 indy, frontside 1080 double cork and an obligatory backside triple cork 1440 melon over the money booter.

While USA's Red Gerard (82.55) and two-time World Champion and flag bearer for Belgium Seppe Smits (78.36) finished third and sixth, respectively with their first run, two more riders were able to make it to the finals thanks to stepping up their game in run two therefore repeating the heat 1 story.

2014 Silver medallist Stale Sandbech (82.13) and Tyler Nicholson (79.21) became the respective fourth Norwegian and Canadian to go for Gold, Silver and Bronze tomorrow morning with finals slated for 10:00 LOC (2:00 CET).

Full results can be found here.