Day one of the sixth annual Burton NZ Open at Snow Park NZ saw a varied field of shredders all vying for a spot in Saturday’s semi-finals alongside some of the world’s best snowboarders.

Although the weather forecast was dodgy at best, it actually turned out to be a pretty nice day at Snow Park NZ, where the women’s pipe qualifiers could be summed up in two words: Asian domination.

Of the top nine women’s riders advancing on to Saturday’s semi-finals, six were Japanese and three were Chinese. Jiayu Liu was straight boosting, starting her run off with a huge frontside air, followed by an equally massive backside air into a front 5, followed by a back 5 mute, front 3 indy and finishing off with a Cab 3 melon.

Head judge Jason Grossi said: “The Chinese riders were killing it. We really haven’t seen them yet at this level and they came out and were ruling it.
Jiayu Liu was going huge. She had good clean spins and her amplitude was great, she pretty
much killed it. There was no one else even close to her – that was pretty cool.”

The Burton NZ Open continues tomorrow with the men’s and women’s slopestyle qualifiers.

Women’s Halfpipe Qualifications Results
1 Jiayu Liu – CHN
2 Zhifeng Sun – CHN
3 Mizuki Naho – JPN
4 Xu Chen – CHN
5 Mayu Ishibashi – JPN
6 Ryoko Iijima – JPN
7 Shiho Nakashima – JPN
8 Asuko Miyake – JPN
9 Rie Yoshizawa – JPN
10 Paula Mitchell – NZE
11 Charmaine Ironside – CAN
12 Lesley McKenna – GBR
13 Faye Gulini – USA
14 Andrea Schuler – SUI