Gus Kenworthy was flooded with relief after sealing his spot in a fourth consecutive Olympic final less than a year after coming out of retirement.
The 34-year-old put together two strong runs in the men's freestyle skiing halfpipe qualifiers to comfortably get his Games underway.
Olympic debutant Liam Richards put down a much-improved second run but was unable to progress to tonight's showpiece with a 17th place finish.
A score of 81.25 saw Kenworthy in the top 12 after his first run, with plenty of athletes playing safe early on in the competition.
He backed it up with a second run of the same score, and will go ninth into tonight's final at 6.30pm UK time, admitting there are more tricks up his sleeves.
"It feels great, it's one of those things where you never picture yourself not making the final, it's just an assumption that you're going to make it but you still have to do it," he said. "It's a big relief to be through.
"It will be a mixture of the two runs in the final.
"The first one was a safety and on the second run I just wanted some practice in doing both 14s so it felt good to do that and land that.
"I have more to add to it and hopefully I'll go bigger."
The men's qualifying had been postponed meaning due to heavy snow on Thursday, meaning that qualification and finals are now on the same day.
It means a tough schedule for Kenworthy, who must now immediately rest up to go again.
"The postponement bummed me out because I felt really good yesterday and had a good night's sleep the night before and woke up in a good head space," he said.
"It's a bummer when you're in that zone and don't get to do it.
"Then today, having to double it up, it's hard on the body and it's hard mentally. But everyone is in the same boat."
Following his first run, 18-year-old Richards shrugged his shoulders at his performance, but let out a roar on his second after landing the run of his Olympic dreams.
Britain's youngest competitor at this Games dropped in for his first run with a score of 54.50, pushing an impressive double cork 1260 on his fourth hit despite losing speed higher up the course.
But went even better on his second, posting a score of 61.00 but it wasn't enough to jump the standings and he missed out on a maiden Olympic final in 17th.
"I'm super excited to be here," he said.
"It's been a dream of mine to do this run and compete here.
"I could have maybe done the alley-oop double at the end, but to be honest, it's been a while since I've done it, so I'm super happy to just land a run and be that close.
"There was just nothing to lose."
Richards had to drop into the pipe after witnessing one of his close friends, reigning world champion Finley Melville Ives, suffer a bad fall and have to be carried off by the medical team.
Danger goes hand-in-hand with freestyle skiing but Richards saw no such worries as he lay down a much improved second run with his pal at the forefront of his mind.
"I just watched one of my best friends take a pretty heavy slam, so I just wanted to go out there and ski for him.
"It was tough, for sure, so I hope he's all good."