Australia’s halfpipe riders Holly Crawford and Nathan Johnstone both qualified convincingly in top place at the World Cup snowboard event in Bardonecchia, Italy, last night.

The Australians, who both secured World Championship titles in January, go into the finals as favourites to win the season’s penultimate World Cup event and rein in the series’ points leaders, Xuetong Cai from China in the women’s and Japan’s Ryo Aono in the men’s.

Taking the top score in this week’s qualifier follows the Australian Institute of Sport and NSW Institute of Sport scholarship holders’ impressive performances in Calgary, Canada, on February 26, where they both took silver medals.

In the chase for overall World Cup honours, Johnstone is 740 points behind Aono while Crawford trails Cai by 1700 points.

Both the Australians are pursuing a possible 2000 points across the last two rounds and with Aono and Chai not competing in Bardonecchia, Crawford and Johnstone can snatch the World Cup trophies with a late charge.

Crawford had a shaky start to qualifying when she fell in her first run, accumulated only 10 points, but advanced straight into the final after her second trip down the pipe scored 26.2. She finished ahead of French pair Mirabelle Thovex and Sophie Rodriguez.

Johnstone was even more dominant on his way to the final with a first run score of 27.4, two points clear of Frenchman Johann Baisamy.

The final starts at 11.45pm tonight AEST on the 2006 Olympic course.