Elias Syrjä
Ruka, Finland | Active: 2017-present World Cup record | Known for: 2025 World Championships big air silver, X Games Aspen, Milano Cortina 2026 | Disciplines: big air, slopestyle
Engadin Under The Last Jump
The big air jump in Engadin glowed under late-March light, the Swiss landing cut hard enough to punish any loose edge. Elias Syrjä had one final answer left: carry speed, set the butter clean, hold the axis, and bring Finland into the medal conversation before the session closed.
On March 29, 2025, Syrjä landed second in the men’s freeski big air at the FIS World Championships. Luca Harrington won with 192.00 points, Syrjä took silver with 184.25, and Birk Ruud finished third with 183.00. The medal was not a small upset hidden in a thin field. It came against the exact names defining modern big air: Harrington, Ruud, Mac Forehand, Troy Podmilsak, Andri Ragettli and Alex Hall.
From Ruka Winters To Freestyleseura Moebius
FIS lists Syrjä as a Finnish freestyle skier with FIS code 2533833, born on August 28, 1998, attached to Freestyleseura Moebius. Ski Sport Finland places him in its A Team and lists his disciplines as slopestyle and big air.
His public identity is tied closely to Ruka, where Finnish winter shapes the training rhythm. X Games notes that he lives in Ruka, a place where December daylight can shrink to only a few hours. That detail matters for a park skier: cold, darkness, repetition, and a long snow season create a different base than the spring park culture of the Alps or the dry-slope pathways of Britain.
The 2017 Big Air Season That Introduced Him
Syrjä’s World Cup record reaches back to 2017. FIS lists early starts at Cardrona, Stubai, Milan, Mönchengladbach, Font Romeu and Snowmass during the 2017/2018 period. He was not yet a finished big air specialist, but the direction appeared quickly.
The first major result came at Mönchengladbach on December 1, 2017, where he finished fourth in a World Cup big air. That same season helped him reach fifth in the 2017/2018 Big Air World Cup standings, a result highlighted by Faction in its athlete profile. The ranking placed a 19-year-old Finnish skier into a discipline that was still consolidating its place inside the Olympic and X Games calendar.
Aspen Before The Medal Years
X Games became a second reference point. Syrjä finished 11th in Men’s Ski Big Air at X Games Norway 2018, then returned at X Games Aspen 2020 and finished seventh in The Real Cost Men’s Ski Big Air. X Games also notes that he finished first in the elimination round at Aspen 2020.
That Aspen 2020 result sits in a strong field. Henrik Harlaut won, Birk Ruud took second, Andri Ragettli third, with Antoine Adelisse, Alex Beaulieu-Marchand, Christian Nummedal, Syrjä, Evan McEachran, Alex Hall, Fabian Bösch, Jesper Tjäder and Teal Harle also in the final order. Syrjä did not medal, but he had entered the same invitation space as the skiers setting the standard for switch triples, nose butters and big-air progression.
How Syrjä Uses Butter Into Height
Syrjä’s strongest tricks are not built only around rotation count. His best big air skiing uses butter entries, switch takeoffs, bio-axis control, grab discipline and landings that keep the movement readable. X Games described his 2025 World Championships silver as highlighted by a nose butter 1800 and a switch butter double bio 1440.
Those tricks explain why his skiing looks different from a pure amplitude approach. A butter entry changes the first fraction of the jump: pressure moves through the ski before the takeoff, the upper body has to stay calm, and the rotation begins with more style risk than a direct pop. In big air scoring, that matters because judges look beyond degrees. They reward difficulty, execution, variety, amplitude, landing strength and how distinct the tricks are from one another.
Chur And Kreischberg Were The Near Misses
The 2024/2025 winter showed how close Syrjä had moved to World Cup podium form. At Chur in October 2024, he finished fourth in big air with 171.00 points, just 1.25 points behind Dylan Deschamps for third. Matej Švancer won that night, with Tormod Frostad second.
On January 10, 2025, Syrjä finished fourth again at the Kreischberg big air World Cup. FIS lists that result with 589.00 FIS points and 50 World Cup points. Three months later, at Tignes, he finished fifth in big air and 20th in slopestyle. The pattern was clear before Engadin: finals, pressure jumps, high-end tricks, and repeated finishes just outside the podium.
Silver In A Finnish Big Air Night
The Engadin 2025 World Championships turned near-misses into a medal. The format counted the two best different jumps out of three attempts, which forced skiers to show variety rather than repeat one safe trick. Syrjä’s 184.25 total was enough to split Harrington and Ruud on the podium.
The Finnish context made the night heavier. Anni Kärävä also won bronze in women’s big air, giving Finland two freeski big air medals in the same championship session. Yle reported that both athletes were earning the first World Championships medals of their careers. For Syrjä, the medal changed the frame of his career. He was no longer only a stylish finalist chasing a World Cup podium; he was a World Championships silver medalist in the most technical big-air era the sport has seen.
Livigno When The Olympic Cut Was One Place Away
Syrjä entered the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic season with real medal credibility, but the Olympic week in Livigno did not become an Engadin repeat. FIS lists him 13th in men’s freeski slopestyle with 176.10 and 15th in men’s freeski big air with 147.50.
The slopestyle result was especially tight because the final cut stopped at 12. He finished just outside the final, with Birk Ruud, Alex Hall and Luca Harrington eventually taking the podium. In big air, the qualification field moved at a brutal level, with Tormod Frostad, Mac Forehand and Matej Švancer later filling the Olympic podium. Syrjä left with Olympic starts, not Olympic medals, but the results still confirm his place in Finland’s top freeski group.
Faction, Auclair And A Sparse Equipment Record
Faction lists Syrjä in its athlete roster and places his profile in Ruka, Finland. Ski Sport Finland lists Auclair under gloves, while personal partners are not filled in on the federation profile. FIS does not provide detailed ski, boot or pole information on his biography page.
That leaves a clean equipment picture without exaggeration. Faction is the visible ski-brand connection; Auclair appears on the national-team profile; anything more specific about boot setup, binding settings or exact model choice should be left out unless a verified athlete or brand source publishes it. Syrjä’s public profile is defined more by competition results and trick selection than by a documented signature product.
Aspen 2026 And The Unrailistic Test
After the World Championships medal, Syrjä returned to X Games Aspen 2026 and finished sixth in Stake Men’s Ski Big Air. X Games results list Mac Forehand first, Luca Harrington second and Dylan Deschamps third, with Syrjä’s best score at 89.00. That gave him his best X Games finish so far.
The next creative contest marker is Red Bull Unrailistic 2026 in Åre, Sweden. Red Bull lists Syrjä as a Finnish skier from Ruka, with Switch 720 as his favourite trick, and references his Engadin 2025 silver, fourth-place World Cup results at Chur and Kreischberg, and sixth place at X Games Aspen 2026. That setting shifts him from big-air stadium pressure into Jesper Tjäder’s rail-heavy imagination, a useful test for a skier whose style is already more than straight rotation math.
Where His Archive Should Sit
The strongest skipowd.tv tags for Elias Syrjä are Ruka, Finland, Freestyleseura Moebius, Ski Sport Finland, Faction, big air, slopestyle, X Games Aspen, Engadin 2025, Milano Cortina 2026, Chur, Kreischberg, Tignes and Red Bull Unrailistic. His page belongs in the contest archive, with a style layer built around butter takeoffs and big-air creativity.
The current endpoint is precise: World Championships big air silver at Engadin 2025, sixth at X Games Aspen 2026, Olympic starts in Livigno, and a Red Bull Unrailistic invite for Åre. Future updates should track whether Syrjä converts repeated fourth-place World Cup finishes into a first World Cup podium, or whether his butter-heavy trick language becomes stronger in rail-driven formats.
