Bree Munro has matched her career best aerial skiing performance, placing sixth in the a World Cup in Changchun, China, while AIS/OWI team-mate David Morris has made his first final, in just the fourth event of his career.

In the absence of world number one Lydia Lassila and Jacqui Cooper, Munro posted a two jump score of 158.62 to grab the honours for Australia in the season opener, but could not repeat the performance in the weekend’s second event, finishing in 18th place after missing her landing in the qualification round.

A tweaked knee in training kept the fourth Australian, Liz Gardner, out of the competition.

Morris began his weekend with a 17th place, scoring 97.40 points for his triple twisting triple somersault to record the best result of his fledgling career by ten places.

He then followed up on the Sunday with a 111.7 point opening jump, finishing 11th in the qualification and earning his first finals spot.

Despite having only a double twisting triple as his second jump, the Melbourne 25-year-old managed to hang on to 11th place overall, ending the day with a total of 197.45 points.

The Chinese dominated their home event, claiming back-to-back women’s trifectas and taking four of the six men’s podium places.

Most impressive were the teenage duo of Jia Zongyang and Qi Guangpu in the second men’s events, Jia taking gold in just his fourth World Cup and Xu reaching his first podium in his ninth outing.