KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — And to think, Shaun White chose not to ride down this course.

Snowboarders kicked off competition at the Olympics on Thursday by making the slopestyle layout that White deemed “intimidating” feel anything but that.

Sunny skies. No wind. Decent snow. All in all, slopestyle’s debut on the grand stage was a great day for riding rails and grabbing big air and an even better day for scores.

Canadian Max Parrot backed up his win last month at the Winter X Games with a 97.5 — 2½ points short of perfect — in a qualifying run punctuated by a triple-flipping jump with a dead-solid landing, the likes of which will be virtually mandatory to win the gold medal.

He was one of eight riders to reach the 90s on a day in which Australia’s Scotty James and Norway’s Kjersti Buaas took the worst falls, but both walked away.

“Other riders complained about the course this week. I actually found it really good from Day One to now,” Parrot said.

White pulled out Wednesday, saying he wanted to focus on winning a third straight gold medal in the halfpipe next week. He was in no mind to put his health at risk on a course that took out one of the world’s top riders, Torstein Horgmo of Norway, and sent dozens more tumbling in training.

Things still weren’t 100 percent ideal when competition began, one day before the opening ceremony.

“It’s getting better. Not fully perfect yet. Pretty icy. Makes it hard to shape the jumps clean,” said Norway’s Staale Sandbech, who scored 94.5.

Leading female contender, American Jamie Anderson, had no problem the day after banging up her back in practice. She called the course conditions “questionable,” especially for the women.