Boklöv competed in his first World Cup competition on December 30, 1986 in Oberstdorf at the Four Hills Tournament . For a long time he was only moderately successful. This changed after he switched to the V-jump technique, which he allegedly invented accidentally as a result of a jumping error in training. He spread the skis from the body to the side in the form of a V and thus offered the wind a much larger attack surface than with the conventional jumping style, in which the skis were guided in parallel.
On December 10, 1988, he won his first of five World Cup competitions in Lake Placid and also the overall World Cup in the 1988/89 season. For this he was awarded by the listeners of Sveriges Radio der Radiosportens Jerringpris . Boklöv was often several meters ahead of his competitors, but had to accept considerable deductions in the posture marks for his jumping style. In particular, the then President of the FIS Jumping Committee , the Norwegian Torbjørn Yggeseth , saw the aesthetics of ski jumping at risk. After Boklöv's success, all ski jumpers switched to the new technique from 1990 on, for which there was no point deduction from 1992.
Boklöv himself could not build on his successes and was mostly only found in the midfield in the following years. At the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville he only reached 47th place on the normal hill, he was not nominated for jumping on the large hill. His last World Cup competition was on January 31, 1993 when he was ski flying in Bad Mitterndorf .