[1][2] His brother, Lars, is a member of the Rockford Icehogs Johansson was born on 26 September 1984 in Avesta, a locality of 15,000 people in Dalarna province of Sweden.

Johansson participated in various sports as a child, including hockey, track and field athletics, skiing, and table tennis.

He switched to skiing in winter and running in summer, combining both with orienteering and training in the club IFK Mora.

Extensive training gradually his built muscles and success in local competitions, both in ski and foot orienteering.

However, he recovered and won silver in ski relay in Vuokatti 2004 Junior World Orienteering Championship, as well as gold in relay and silver in long distance at the Gdańsk 2004 Junior World foot Orienteering Championship.

At the 2007 World Orienteering Championships in Kyiv he had collapsed on the long distance run, but amazingly recovered to win bronze medal in the sprint just a few days after that.

Before the 2008 World Orienteering Championships in Olomouc he had a serious toe injury, but recovered and again won a bronze medal in sprint.

French Thierry Gueorgiou was a favorite and was leading the race, but made an orienting mistake and fell behind Johansson.

All of this was witnessed by spectators worldwide who were following the men's relay race, via GPS tracking shown live on the Internet.

[11][12] IOF president Åke Jacobson told Gueorgiou, Nordberg and Smola "What you did today is a great example of extreme sportsmanship and fair play.

Johansson participated in the European Orienteering Championship (foot) in Ventspils Latvia (2008) and was 5th in the long distance, 12th in sprint and 6th in relay.