Day one of the X Games and the morning dawned a bit grey and flat. But that didn't deter us - elimination rounds for the women's snowboard slopestyle were up first and the girls weren't messing around.

The slopestyle course is massive, running down into Val Claret. From the bottom, you can just about see the start gate and at the bottom, a big video screen shows the action from above on the course, alongside the final big kicker.

Lining up to secure one of six places in the final was British two times X Games gold medal winner Jenny Jones, alongside Cheryl Maas (France), Spencer O'Brien (Canada) and 10 others.

On the first of two qualifying runs, Silje Norendal from Norway tackled the course with confidence, while Cilka Sadar (Slovakia) went massive but took a spill on landing and Sarka Pancochova (Czech) was pretty pleased with her run when she reached the bottom. Unfortunately Cheryl Maas (pronounced Shee-ryl) takes a massive spill and is out.

Jenny was the first of the riders to hit the final rail, just before the last, big, kicker, and pulled some massive grabs through the course. She was super hyped when she finished, and bashful in front of the ESPN film camera pushed in her face.

Jenny's run secures her second, but Spencer O'Brien, down next, takes the lead. Aimee Fuller, 19 years old from the UK, gives it loads and gets into 8th. She looks a little wobbly at times but is attacking everything with balls and goes for the big airs.

Going into the second run, Jenny is third but she pulls some massive grabs over the course and a huge air on the final kicker and, despite falling a little on landing, the judges give her a whopping 96.3. She's got first, and seems very surprised to have secured such a high score!

The six women that make it through to Friday's final are (in order): Jenny Jones,  Sina Candrian, Spencer O'Brien, Silje Norendal, Sarka Pancochova, and Kjersti Oestgaard Buaas.

Chatting to Jenny after she qualified, she said it's the toughest course yet of the season and the snow's a bit sticky so it was hard to go for big spins - all her attention had to go on getting plenty of speed to clear the jumps. A lot of the girls couldn't ride the run they wanted to, but Jenny's done more than enough to secure her place in the final and is on her way to a third Winter X Games gold medal.

Pics will be posted shortly, in the meantime here's a video of yesterday's practice sessions: