MT BEAUTY'S Britt Cox and Aussie teammate Jakara Anthony have qualified for the first women's moguls final on Sunday after strong runs in the opening qualifying round at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games last night.
Cox, who has mastered her craft at Falls Creek, started her fourth Olympic Games campaign with a solid run down the challenging moguls course at Zhangjiakou, placing ninth of the 30 competitors.
Out early on the course, former world champion Cox was thrilled with her performance under the lights, with temperatures dipping to minus 10.
Cox, who finished fifth in 2018, scored 72.26 for her run.
"I was so happy that I was able to put down the run that I was doing in training," the 27–year–old told AAP.
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"I executed the points that my coaches and I talked about and I still feel like I've got a little bit left in the tank, so we will see what happens and build on that in training."
The 'veteran' of the team was one of four Aussie competitors, and as expected, teammate Jakara Anthony laid down an Olympic gold medal marker, finishing on top of qualifying in the women's moguls.
The 23–year–old blitzed the Beijing course, posting a score of 83.75 to sit clear of defending Olympic champion Perrine Laffont of France, who scored 81.11.
Anthony finished a surprise fourth at the last Olympics in PyeongChang, but arrived in Beijing as a medal favourite after jostling with Laffont and Japanese teen sensation Anri Kawamura in the World Cup standings all season.
The Mt Buller–based skier was delighted to transform that World Cup form into Olympic competition.
"I'm really proud and happy with what I was able to achieve just then," Anthony said.
"I transferred really well from training to competition but there's definitely still bits I want to work on cleaning up and improving which is a really great position to be in, I think.
"You don't want to be going into finals maxed out so I'm really happy with where I'm at."
All 30 skiers completed the first run of qualifying, with the top 10 skipping the second round to move through to the first women's final on Sunday.
Fellow Australian Sophie Ash finished in 13th while Taylah O'Neill, who has been battling a serious knee injury, didn't finish.
In contrast in the men's qualifying, no Australian man finished in the top 10, with 2018 silver medallist Matt Graham bitterly disappointed after failing to finish.
Brodie Summers was the best of the men in green and gold, just missing the top 10 in 11th while Olympic debutant Cooper Woods placed 14th and James Matheson was 20th.
Olympic champion Mikael Kingsbury of Canada was the top men's qualifier with Graham saying he got caught in the tricky conditions late in the evening.
"The snow is obviously really firm and solid which makes the moguls quite catchy and I just landed the top jump and maybe let it run a bit too much and then got caught up and spat out pretty quickly," Graham said.
"I'm pretty disappointed with how it went – obviously I want to be right up there but I'm fortunate to get another chance in the second qualifying round."
The moguls team are among the first of the 43–strong Australian contingent in China to start their Games competition.
