Australian Olympic snowboarder Holly Crawford has cruised into the World Cup halfpipe final at the annual Winter Games in New Zealand.
Some of the world's best snow sport athletes are the Cardrona ski fields in the South Island for the Games, preparing for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi in just under six months.
Crawford, 29, was fourth in her heat on Thursday, scoring 77.33 behind leading Americans Kelly Clark (92.00), Gretchen Bleiler (87.66) and Arielle Gold (76.66) and automatically advances to Saturday's final while 10 others contest semi-finals.
"I'm really happy, it saves a bit of time on the day so I can keep my energy up," Crawford told AAP.
"It's been a bit rough, we didn't get much training.
"I just kind of took it a bit easy and got a run down."
"It's always a bit of a ramp up going into the Olympics.
"The top girls are definitely out there, so there's a bit of competition."
Heat two was claimed by China's six-time World Cup winner Jiayu Liu with a score of 91.00.
Crawford's countrywomen Hannah Trigger and Amber Arazny missing out on a semi-final run, finishing 14th and 15th respectively in their heats.
Australia's best Olympic chance, Torah Bright, pulled out of the event on Thursday despite competing in the snowboard slopestyle event at Cardona on Monday.
Bright took out the gold medal in the event at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
