After a week of self-imposed silence, Mia Brookes and her snowboard entered the light long enough to qualify for the Big Air final on Sunday night. But it was hardly a straightforward trip for Team GB's most hyped teenager.

A crash landing onto her backside on the very first of three jumps was a bleak way for this 19-year-old to begin her two-pronged assault on the medals at these Winter Olympics.

To explain the significance there, consider a couple of points: one is that two efforts needed to score to stand any chance of reaching Monday's final, meaning she was on the ropes at the very outset. And that plays to the second point: there has been a rumour since Brookes arrived here that her nerves had become a significant factor, so much so she has been shielded from all interviews.

A fall on the first jump? That's no way to soothe the inner turmoil.

But then came the talent of a woman who has twice won the World Cup in this discipline and is among the favourites for gold in another, the slopestyle, which falls later in the week.

Her response would suggest why – on her next jump, Brookes launched herself down from the 150-foot high start line and backwards off the ramp before rotating into a series of turns through 1260 degrees. She nailed the landing, punched the air and her score of 89 points was the second highest of the evening.

With the pressure off, she breezed through an easier move for a 78-point return and safe passage to the final. Only Zoi Sadowski Synnott of New Zealand and Japan's Kokomo Murase qualified with a better total.

'The build-up to this was definitely quite big in the back of my mind but when I got here it was really chill,' she said, before sharing a weapon in her arsenal – heavy-metal music through her headphones.

'I just try to block out all the noise that's going on around me. Metallica. Megadeth. Pantera. A bit of Judas Priest as well. Super chill stuff.'

If it works, it works.