Taking a glance at Abi Harrigan's scores in her Olympic freeski slopestyle debut — where she finished 26th out of 26 riders — and you could be forgiven for being slightly underwhelmed.

Scores of 16.10 on her first run and a 26.31 on her second — for reference, Estonia's Kelly Sildaru top-scored with 86.15 — are far from a fair reflection on what Harrigan is capable of performing.

But that would be ignoring the glaring asterisk that should be scrawled on that scoresheet.

The 19-year-old from Jindabyne was skiing though the pain of a fractured fibula.

Harrigan fractured her right lower leg — just above the boot line — three weeks ago while training in Livigno, Italy when a fellow skier crashed into her side.

"I was devastated," she said of her thoughts immediately after finding out she had fractured the smaller of the two bones below her knee.

It took a precautionary X-ray to reveal the damage after Harrigan complained of soreness following the injury.

"At the time we found out, I thought that was it, I was going to go home," she said.

However, Harrigan was determined to achieve her goal of competing at an Winter Olympic Games.

With the help of the Australian medical staff, she got herself into a position to compete.

"When I found out I was coming [to the Olympics] I was pretty excited," Harrigan said.

Harrigan was forced to take painkillers and an anaesthetic to numb the area in order to get through the pain. She also wore a heat-moulded plate to keep the injury stable.

Even then, competing with a broken leg is far from ideal.

"It's not the worst bone to break, but it's still a broken bone," Harrigan said.

"A little crash in training didn't help.

"It's definitely painful."

While Harrigan injured herself before the Games, the slopestyle course claimed a couple of victims of its own in Monday's qualifiers, which were moved from Sunday due to the snowstorm that rendered visibility too low to be safe to compete.

There could have been no such complaints on Monday, however, as skiers competed in freezing conditions under brilliant blue skies, although the Genting Snow Park course still caused issues for plenty of athletes.

American Marin Hamill suffered a nasty crash at the end of her second run, leaving the 20-year-old writhing in pain on the slope and requiring lengthy treatment before she was transported to hospital.

Hamill's US teammate, Caroline Claire, was also unable to compete after being injured in this morning's practice session.

Harrigan — who finished 13th in the slopestyle at last year's world championships — was able to put an admittedly conservative run down.

She was happy to be able to achieve her Olympic dream.

"Definitely would have liked to perform a bit better, but [with the] injury holding me back I'm pretty happy to be out here having some fun," Harrigan said.

Sildaru was the top qualifier for Tuesday's final, ahead of Norway's Johanne Killi and Chinese sensation Eileen Gu.

Gu will be looking to add the slopestyle gold to the big air title she won last Tuesday.