Rene Rinnekangas

For those of us that don’t know you - introduce yourself.

My name is Rene Rinnekangas – I’m 25 years old, from Lisalmi in Finland - almost in the middle of the country, a countryside town, I would say. I grew up snowboarding there.

Where you are right now?

At the moment, I'm in Ruka, about four hours further up north where I live. I think this is one of the best resorts in Finland, and I love to spend time here. And they just opened the park for early season sessions so I’ve been snowboarding a bunch and playing some hockey!

What else have you been up to recently?

I was back home in Lisalmi pretty much the whole summer, I probably left only few times the past months. When I'm not snowboarding I really enjoy being there and being in one spot. It’s not too big of a city - around 20,000 people living there. It’s a pretty mellow vibe and it’s so nice to see my parents and my brother and chill out a little bit.

Talk us through your journey into snowboarding?

It was a family affair, my brother started snowboarding a year or so before me and he's five years older - so when I started, I was around four years old. I felt like everything he was doing I had to do exactly the same things… he's a big inspiration for me as a snowboarder, and in life in general.

He was really good at doing big tricks and stuff like that on a snowboard and was getting into contests, so I also got into doing contest because of him. Then he started filming, so I also got into filming because of him. It’s pretty funny really that I've been following what he's been doing and that also my friends I film with now, they were originally his friends; Anton Kiiski and Tatu Toivanen. I was probably 10 years old, and they were 15 when we started filming together. And we're still filming with the same crew. It means a lot to me to spend time with the same crew and be able to do this when we are a bit older.

What have been some of your career highlights so far?

Contest-wise, I would say when I first got the chance to ride in the X Games. That was what I was always dreaming about. The first time when I got a chance to do X Games, it was really special, because they invited my brother and our band which I play in as well. After the slopestyle contest there was an after party on top of the mountain which we got to play a punk rock gig, I’d say it was one of the best days of my life.

On the non -contest side of life, we've been filming with the same crew, making a few video projects together - one is called Sugared that came out about three years ago. That was our first bigger project, and we’re very hyped about that. There's going to be a new one coming out this fall called Heaven, and we're having a premiere in Helsinki really soon and following that in Stockholm!

Tell us more about Heaven?

Pretty much after the last Olympics in 2022, Anton, Tatu and I - the same crew we've been filming with for a while, started a new project - a similar concept to Sugared. A mix of street snowboarding and backcountry and kind of spring back country stuff in there as well. I feel this one is a bit more special, because our plan was to do it in one and a half years at first, but after the first year, I got injured - I broke my ankle, so I had to take a break, and then we kept going last season. It feels so nice to do these things with my friends, and we’re so grateful for all that support us.

How would you describe the Finnish scene?

In Finland in general we have a pretty good snowboarding scene, especially for street riding. You can still get kicked off the spot, but usually you can talk to the people and they understand. They have probably seen it a bit, or even quite a lot in Finland. People snowboarding and snowsports in general, they're a big thing in Finland – it’s really ingrained in our culture.

Finland is a pretty small country and I’m not sure why, but there's been a lot of good riders that come from Finland and people have their different idols. For me it was Eero Ettala; from watching him on TV as he had his own show. Nowadays it’s so nice to see people coming over to Finland to film street riding from all over the world - that’s awesome to see.

I think Finland shapes your snowboarding differently, there’s a lot of street riding as that is what we grew up doing.

How do feel mixing contests and video parts?

It works good for me, I love it. I’ve been doing it this way since I was pretty young, probably around 10 years old. I was always big fan of videos and a big fan of doing contests. It's always been a big part of my snowboarding and it's so nice to mix it up. Every time I'm jumping from street trip to contest, I feel really stoked to do those contest tricks again - instead of doing one thing the whole season, I think it works really good to mix it up. It all feels kind of new again. There’s so many things you can learn from both sides and bring it to the other. I’ve always been a fan of those riders who can ride all kind of things – I feel like that's how snowboarding was back in the day, and it's cool to see that it's still here.

What does DIYX mean to you?

It means a lot, for sure.

I’ve been three years in a row now, and it’s so nice to see so many people like getting together to have that type of event in snowboarding. I think it's very important for the sport and it’s epic to see how many people are stoked on snowboarding. I wouldn’t even call it a contest, because it feels totally different than doing a World Cup… I think the contests back in the day probably used to be a bit more like DIYX - it's an awesome concept.

What inspires you in snowboarding?

Those riders who can ride all kinds of stuff. I was a big fan of my brother - he was always riding all kind of things. I'm very stoked about learning how to ride my snowboard to the best of my ability - like not thinking too much about the tricks, but say the edge control etc. Seeing people who are insanely good at doing those kinds of things, like Arthur Longo, he’s doing really beautiful stuff on a snowboard. Even if it is straight air, it looks amazing, and you can tell how good he is, like as a rider. The funny thing is, it doesn't even look like he's trying too hard, it looks like he's just cruising, but he's going so fast, it’s really hard to follow him, his edge control is just so, so good. So that's very inspiring to me. Whenever I'm riding resort, I wish I could ride like him, trying to find different side hits and just learn and get better!

What inspires you outside of snowboarding?

I love skateboarding. That's always been a big thing for me as well. And there's a lot of things and ideas coming from skateboarding to snowboarding, and I love that part of doing both and kind of mixing up the ideas. I also love being part of my brother's band and playing music. I love that feeling when you have a gig, it's such an intense emotion, like being nervous, but a totally different feeling than being nervous snowboarding. Lately, I've been very, very stoked about playing hockey, it's so fun and such a good sport and exercise. It’s classic going to the ice rink with the team I play with, there's people from 20 years old to 60 years old. It’s rad that there are so many different ages present and hearing all the stories and jokes from the different ages and stages of life.

Any last words?

Thanks to you guys, and for Vans supporting the thing I love to do the most. Thanks to my brother for always inspiring me and for my dear friends Anton and Tatu, it’s so fun to make projects with your best friends.