Johan Olofsson (born 27 October 1976) is a

snowboarder Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic ...

from

Gällivare Gällivare (; ; or ; or ; ) is a locality and the seat of Gällivare Municipality in Norrbotten County, province of Lapland, Sweden with 8,449 inhabitants in 2010. The town was founded in the 17th century. Together with nearby towns Malmberget ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. He is known for being one of the first riders to take freestyle tricks more commonly performed in man-made terrain parks into the big mountain freeriding environments of

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

. Olofsson originally came from a freestyle background; when he arrived on the Alaskan snowboarding scene, he quickly adapted his spin tricks and jibs to the backcountry environment. Olofsson rapidly gained attention and respect from the freeriding community when he started doing these tricks off natural features such as windlips and

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. ...

s in the midst of terrifyingly steep lines in the Alaskan ranges. In the Standard Films movie '' TB5'' (his first part in a major snowboard release), he was filmed in Alaska attacking a line with such ferocity that he stunned the snowboarding world and instantly gained legendary status. From the top of the line to foot of the descent, on a slope of over 40 degrees, he travelled over 3000 vertical feet in a mere 35 seconds, averaging over 120 km/h, a feat which got him into the 1996

Guinness Book of World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listi ...

and the Snowboarding Hall of Fame. He subsequently became a main stay of the TB series, featuring in TB6, TB7, TB8, TB9, TB10, as well as other movies such as '' Snowriders 2'' (1997) and '' Freeriders'' (1998). Olofsson spent his entire snowboarding career (some eight years) with Burton as his primary sponsor. After a series of injuries between 2001 and 2004 he was dropped by Burton Snowboards and went some years without a sponsor. He announced his retirement from professional snowboarding in 2005 and went on to work on a project building a snowpark at Dundret in

(Sweden) in 2007, called Thunderpark. He moved on from Thunderpark, and went pro for The North Face. He features in

Teton Gravity Research Teton Gravity Research (TGR) is an Extreme skiing, extreme sports media and apparel company based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The company was founded in 1996 by brothers Steve and Todd Jones, as well as friends Dirk Collins, Rick Armstrong, and Cor ...

's 2010 movie ''Deeper''. Venture Snowboards from Silverton, CO, brought him on board as a product tester to aid product design and development of their boards. He rode one of their Storm-R splitboards during the filming of Deeper. In 2011, Venture released the "Odin" which while not a pro-model, was designed in collaboration with Olofsson and features his signature on the board graphic.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olofsson, Johan Living people Swedish male snowboarders 1976 births Sportspeople from Gällivare