CALGARY — Canadian male snowboarders started strong and never let up during Thursday's qualifying at the Nokia Snowboard FIS World Cup halfpipe competition held at Canada Olympic Park.
On the men's side, Jeff Batchelor, Brendan Davis and Brad Martin represented the host country well as they qualified straight through to Friday night's final by finishing in the top three in their respective heats.
Justin Lamoureux, Ryan Rausch, Dan Raymond, Gabriel Dussault and Neil Connolly all made it through to the semifinals.
Batchelor was the first competitor of the day to take on the six-metre high walls of the gigantic halfpipe. He set the bar high with a score of 44.6 on his first run and followed that up with an even more impressive 48.4 on his second.
"I really just try to go in with an open-mind and hope to come out with a good run," Batchelor said. "You can't come to your home country thinking you have an advantage because everyone is competing on the same pipe."
For Batchelor, getting to this point has required a great deal of sacrifice as the Oakville, Ont., native recently decided to take time off from school to compete in events around the world.
"Now I can just focus purely on snowboarding, and while at times it feels like a job, it something that I still definitely want to do," he said.
In the female competition, the Chinese team, led by Jiayu Liu, swept the top three automatic qualifier spots for the final.
Mercedes Nicoll is the only Canadian remaining in the competition and will battle it out in the semifinals.
She fell on her first run, putting a lot of pressure on her to come through on her second.
"In my second run I was trying to just go through solid and nail my tricks, I just needed to post a good one," Nicoll said.
The 24-year-old is hoping for a podium finish at this event but admitted it will not be easy.
"I will have to look ay my results and see how everything ended up and then just come back and look to go cleaner and take a little more risk," she said.
Nicoll was just one of many taking a spill during the qualifying action, as the monstrous halfpipe proved to be quite difficult. The structure has been built to the exact specifications of the one that will be used at Cypress Mountain for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.
For local snowboarder Josh Duncan, who failed to qualify for the semifinals, this day of competition was special because he played a major role in the construction of the halfpipe.
"I have been here for a long time, doing everything from the dirt work all the way to installing the foundation for the lights," said Duncan, who has worked with the grounds crew at Canada Olympic Park for four years.
The veteran rider hopes snowboarding will continue to evolve in Canada and believes the halfpipe is a step in the right direction.
"In Canada we have always been about four or five years behind with having the good facilities in place," Duncan said. "If our riders don't have the good facilities to train in they're not going to reach that next benchmark."
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