Qualifications and finals will be broadcast live on FIS.tv and the FIS Snowboard YouTube channel, as well as on the Winter Games NZ website and YouTube channel.

This week marks five years since the FIS Snowboard World Cup last featured big air action here at Cardrona, and it has been seven years since the last Slopestyle World Cup competition at this venue – although Cardrona has hosted plenty of competition in the Australia New Zealand Cup over the past few seasons and last year’s Junior World Championships in Big Air and Slopestyle.

Although bad weather is forecast for the weekend, the experienced crew here at Cardrona will do everything possible to make this weekend’s competitions a success.

And of course that applies to the riders too, because here in Cardrona there are a large number of riders who want to start the season – and the qualifying phase for the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan-Cortino – on the right foot.

For the women, this means that players such as Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand, reigning world champion and X-Game winner Mia Brookes of Great Britain, the inimitable Anna Gasser of Austria, Kokomo Murase, Reira Iwabuchi and Mari Fukada of the strong Japanese team, and Hailey Langland are likely to be at the center of the action over the next few days.