A sergeant in the Norwegian Army at the time, Leif Skagnæs was a member of the team that won the military ski patrol demonstration sport at St. Moritz in 1928. Two years later, he won the silver medal in Nordic combined at the 1930 World Championships in Oslo when he was again a member of the victorious Norwegian team in the military ski patrol. He was the only participant from the 1928 Olympic team. He also competed at the 1929 Worlds, placing seventh in the 50 km cross-country.
During World War II he joined the Norwegian resistance movement, was arrested and imprisoned in Buchenwald and Flossenburg from 1943 to 1945. He worked as a policeman in Oslo, but died at the age of 51 from thrombosis, after two weeks in hospital.