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The most successful Slopestyle athlete of all time: Meet Emil Johansson
The Swedish Slopestyle rider has taken the bike world by storm with his technical riding style and incredible comeback story.
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With his technical and smooth riding style, Swedish Slopestyle rider Emil Johansson has skyrocketed to the top of the Slopestyle podium since bursting onto the scene back in 2016. Despite only being 23 years old, he has already made history with his 13 Crankworx wins, making him the most successful Slopestyle athlete in the history of the sport.
Johansson has been on a quick rise to the top.
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
Johansson is a four-time World Champion and a three-time Triple Crown of Slopestyle winner. Add being the youngest ever FMB World Champion and having competed in the freeride event Red Bull Rampage to Johansson's resumée and you can start to grasp the multitude of his talent.
However, his road to the top hasn’t entirely been smooth. There's been incredible highs but he's also had to deal with lows with mystery illnesses and gnarly injuries.
Discover all the twists and turns of his journey below.
Emil Johansson, pretty much unbeatable since 2019
© Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool
01
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Emil Johansson was born on June 20, 1999, in Trollhättan, a Swedish city north of Gothenburg better known for its hydropower industry than its bike riding. Just like many other local Swedish kids, he grew up playing handball and ice hockey, but couldn't help sneaking off to the local dirt jumps to ride his bike.
Johansson has been on a quick rise to the top.
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
While Johansson was still young, Martin Söderström was becoming a big star on the international slopestyle scene and was inspiring youth from all over Sweden and Scandinavia to ride bikes. Johansson sat up and took notice.
"When Martin made it internationally, I decided to buy my first bike," Johansson says. "His success definitely influenced me and made me believe anything is possible."
2 min
Martin Söderström and Emil Johansson
See Martin Söderström and Emil Johansson put their style and excellency in focus at Järvsö, Sweden.
02
BREAKOUT TIME
Johansson started riding jump contests in Sweden around 2013, but only emerged internationally onto the slopestyle scene in 2016 after gaining a wildcard entry to the Swatch Prime Line competition in Munich, Germany. From there appearances snowballed. A third at the Maxxis Slopestyle event in Winter Park, USA, got him a wildcard invite to the biggest event of the year, Red Bull Joyride. Aged 17, he performed in front of his biggest crowd and finished remarkably in fourth place.
Johansson wowing the crowds at Red Bull Joyride in 2017.
© Jussi Grznar / Red Bull Content Pool
The following season, Johansson cemented his role on the scene as the rookie to watch after placing third at Crankworx in Rotorua, second in Innsbruck and second at Red Bull Joyride in Whistler.
03
THINGS COME CRASHING DOWN
While it looked like the then 18-year-old had the world at his feet, few knew that Johansson was secretly fighting an increasingly bad backache and crumbling immune system at the back end of 2017. It would eventually get so bad that it completely turned the up-and-coming rider’s world upside down.
For a time no one could figure out what was wrong with Johansson
© Paris Gore/Red Bull Content Pool
I felt that something was up with my body
It would take several months and many international appointments with some of the best doctors in their field to figure out that Johansson was actually fighting two autoimmune diseases that were causing his body to attack itself: Epstein–Barr virus and Hashimoto's disease as well as suffering from a congenital 6th lumbar vertebrae defect, which he’d been born with.
Watch Emil's comeback story in the documentary "Every Mystery I've Lived":
25 min
EMIL – Every Mystery I’ve Lived
Emil Johansson spent 2018 struggling with an autoimmune disease, but now he’s ready to make his comeback.
04
GETTING BACK ON THE BIKE
2018 was a blur of pain, doctors and barely any time on the bike. Johansson was on the road to recovery, but it was long with plenty of setbacks and the big question still remained: would he ever be able to return to the competition limelight?
With minimal training, and having not performing on big jumps for 12 months, a brave Johansson finished fourth at Red Bull Joyride 2018, a result that saw him stun the pundits and cry and laugh with relief. "When I dropped in, I felt like I had beaten the illness. All the pressure just went off me," he said.
Emil landed a 4th at Red Bull Joyride after barely having ridden his bike.
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
05
THE BIG COMEBACK
Johansson was still far from being back to full strength and the tough road to recovery continued. It would take two years for Johansson to fully come back to the competition scene. When he finally did, he did it with a bang, taking second place at Crankworx Innsbruck in June 2019. His second competition in two years.
In the months that followed he went on to finally win Red Bull Joyride and also gained a last-minute wildcard entry to the biggest mountain bike competition of the year, Red Bull Rampage.
A complete rookie in the world of Freeride, Johansson still managed to build and ride a line in the Utah desert that impressed riders and judges alike, who called it: “a rookie run for the history books”.
Emil Johansson at Red Bull Rampage 2019.
© Paris Gore / Red Bull Content Pool
And whilst still having to fight his auto-immune disease every day, the talented rider continues to impress everyone with his stylish riding and huge trick repertoire.
Find how Johansson experienced his first Red Bull Rampage in the video below:
15 min
Red Bull Rampage, Utah, USA
We follow Emil Johansson to Red Bull Rampage for his first appearance in the Utah desert.
Johansson kept the winning momentum going into 2020, when he took the honours at the first Crankworx Rotorua. Once again, he put down a run “for the history books”, with the commentators claiming that it could just be “the best slopestyle run ever done”. Johansson also took the win at Crankworx Innsbruck later that season.
He kept the momentum of his perfect 2020 season into 2021 and continued his winning streak, managing to take all three wins and being rewarded the title the Tripple Crown of Crankworx.
In 2022 he took three out of four wins, despite two big injuries that season and grabbed his third World Championship title as well as his second Tripple Crown of Crankworx.
06
JOHANSSON MAKES HISTORY
At Crankworx Innsbruck 2023 Johansson took the 12th win of his career, breaking legendary Brandon Semenuk's record of 11 wins, making him the most succesfull Slopestyle athlete in the history of the sport. He also grabbed his third Tripple Crown title and, a month later, he also won the 2023 overall by taking yet another win at Red Bull Joyride. That gives him a total of four World Championship titles.
7 min
Emil Johansson's winning slopestyle run – Innsbruck
Watch Sweden's Emil Johansson bag a record-breaking 12th Crankworx slopestyle win in Innsbruck.
Emil laid down a heater during Crankworx Whistler despite a hand injury
© Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool
When Emil is here, we’re all competing for second place.
07
BROKEN BUT NEVER BEATEN
Since first stepping onto the scene in 2016, Johansson’s skills have gone from strength to strength. However, the past two seasons have been injury-ridden for the Swede – including a broken collarbone and ribs suffered at Crankworx Cairns in May 2025 – but in true Johansson style, Emil came back to win Red Bull Joyride 2025 in Whistler, Canada. He scored an impressive 91.00 points from the judges, securing his fourth Red Bull Joyride title.
Wether on top of podiums or recovering from injury, Emil is always looking for ways to improve his riding. He's structured, has a clear goal and works hard for it. And if we've learned anything from history, it's that it's only a matter of time until we will see the talented Swede back competing for first place.
The moment when Johansson takes his 12th win and becomes historic
© Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool
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