Sydney snowboarder Damon Hayler has won the first World Cup event of his career, taking gold in snowboard cross in Bad Gastein, Austria.

Hayler conquered a difficult course and a high quality field led by Torino gold medallist Seth Westcott to collect the maiden victory, as well as a major confidence boost in the lead-up to the World Championships in Korea next weekend.

The 32-year-old Australian Institute of Sport rider qualified in sixth place, then won his way through three finals’ rounds, eliminating Westcott and 2007 World Cup runner-up Nate Holland along the way.

In the four-man head-to-head final, Austrian rider Markus Schairer and Canadian Mike Robertson both crashed out, and although the Australian crossed the line in second place behind US rider Graham Watanabe, the American was disqualified for crossing one of the gates early in the course.

Hayler’s previous best result was a bronze medal in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, in October 2005.

“The conditions today were really icy, really fast racing, a bit of a crazy course with a lot of people crashing,” Hayler said.

“It was one of those courses where you had to be very smart about your racing and I was really happy about how well I raced all day.”

“I was a bit lucky but I’ve had a lot of bad luck in the past couple of races, so I’ll take it.”

“Obviously I'm really happy about this win for many reasons, but especially because I took a big fall in the World Cup in Arosa three weeks ago, which I am still a bit sore from.”

“But also because I had such a bad day in yesterday’s World Cup where I came 32nd, so to turn it around today and win the race before the world champs gives me a lot of confidence.”

“I’m just really excited about my win and hopefully I can keep this momentum up.”

Hayler’s AIS/OWI team-mate Alex Pullin also rode well in qualifying, finishing one place further back in seventh position.

But the Mansfield 21-year-old was eliminated in his round of 32 final, ending the day in 18th place.

After the opening four events of the season, Hayler sits in fourth place on the World Cup standings on 1446 points, 714 points behind Schairer. Pullin is in 11th place on 1058 points.

Hayler and Pullin now travel to Korea for the biennial world championships, to be held on Sunday January 18 in Gangwon.