Australia's top snowboarders have made a superb start to their top-level Winter Olympic preparations, with Josie Baff, Adam Lambert and 16-year-old Ally Hickman grabbing medals at their respective World Cup competitions.
Baff, a Youth Olympics champion who looks set to be in the mix for the senior title in Cortina next February, finished third in her four-racer women's 'Big Final' before her Jindabyne buddy Lambert replicated that result in a landmark men's race on Saturday.
Ever-improving 28-year-old NSW racer Lambert finished behind Jonas and Aidan Chollet, French siblings who became the first pair of brothers ever to achieve a one-two in a World Cup snowboarding event.
The surprise was that 17-year-old phenomenon Jonas, who clocked 49.37 seconds to Aidan's 50.21, is the younger and more inexperienced of the pair.
Behind this fraternal scrap, Lambert, who also had two podium finishes last year, bided his time before making his move but couldn't quite get on terms with the French pair.
Yet as he lunged for the line, he managed to pip German Martin Noerl for the bronze, with both men credited with the same time, 50.43sec.
"I had a plan the whole run. I knew I was going to get out fourth or third, because those two Chollet brothers are fast as," said Lambert.
"I had a line that I’d been running all day and I knew it was fast. I came up a bit too fast on them in turn five, and couldn’t get in the draft, but I’m so stoked with third, it’s not even a big problem."
The 22-year-old Baff was equally as delighted about her bronze as she finished close behind only last year's World Cup champion Lea Casta, of France, and Italy's world champion Michela Moioli.
Baff employed different tactics to Lambert, blasting away from the start and hoping to hold on, but though she lost position after an early mistake on the first turn in the final, it still proved a close-run affair as Casta pipped Moioli with the Aussie holding off Swiss Sina Siegenthaler for the bronze.
“I love the first race of the season, I am eager to get back racing and I want to beat all of the girls, so I think that’s a big motivating factor for me,” said 22-year-old Baff.
“That was super-tight racing. When we came out of the second-last turn, all four of us were together, boards were hitting boards, and it was pretty crazy actually.
"But I’m super-happy to have a podium for the first race of the season.”
Meanwhile, Hickman grabbed her first World Cup medal, winning bronze in the Steamboat Springs snowboard Big Air final in Colorado on Saturday.
With two of three runs counting to the final score, Hickman hit a frontside 1080 with mute and tail grabs in her first attempt to earn an impressive 88.00 points.
In her final run, she came in clutch, landing a backside 720 with a melon grab to finish with 162.25 points as Japan's Miyabi Onitsuka won with 174, from South Korea's Sengeun Yu (173.25).
The other Australian in the field, 21-year-old Meila Stalker, finished seventh, scoring 145.00.
