Roos Zwetsloot: First Woman to Hit the 16 Steps in Hollywood—What Made Her Go There?

Sixteen stairs, a metal handrail, in front of the most famous high school in Los Angeles. In 2021, a 21-year-old Dutch skater grinds it all the way down, where no woman had gone before. Her name is Roos Zwetsloot. But what pushes someone to climb up there?

The video runs 18 seconds. Grizzly Griptape, her sponsor, drops it online in 2023 with a dry line: first skater to grind the 16‑step Hollywood High ramp. No heroic music, no slow‑mo. One girl, one ramp, one reception. What you’re into here isn’t the reception. It’s what pushes someone to climb up there.

Utrecht 2018: a knee, and twenty‑four hours of tears

Roos doesn’t come from skate. She comes from field hockey, the Netherlands’ king sport, the one with tidy clubs and clean cleats. She flips to the board, and at 18 she’s already among the country’s hopefuls.

September 2018, Rotterdam. A heelflip, a bad landing, the knee giving out. Doctors talk about cruciate ligaments. In front of the VPRO camera, she drops two lines no one wants to say at 18: “Shit, goodbye Barcelona,” then “there, I’m gonna cry twenty‑four hours.” The Rotterdam World Cup goes on without her.

She cries. Then she comes back. A year later, she brings home bronze from the European Championships in Nizhny Novgorod.

Hollywood High: sixteen steps that every Los Angeles kid knows

Hollywood High is a public high school at 1521 North Highland Avenue. For skaters worldwide, it’s mainly a staircase: sixteen steps, a ramp in the middle, and the nickname “Hollywood 16.” One of the most filmed spots in town, and one of the most feared.

Why feared? Because sixteen steps is the height of a first floor. You descend it standing on a board, balancing on a few centimeters of tube, with concrete at the end. If you miss, you don’t fall onto a mat.

The trick itself has a story. In 1986, Mark Gonzales was among the first to slide on a street stair ramp. Thirty-five years later, Roos added a line nobody had written at Hollywood.

The 16‑step ramp: what a try really costs

A try on a ramp like that is played before leaving. You look at the stairs from above. You count the steps. You feel the weight of all those who left limping. Then you push, you jump, and for two seconds you have no choice.

That same year, the Dutch company Incentro dedicated a short documentary to him, COMMIT – 2021. The title says it all: commit, all‑in, no Plan B. The film shows him aiming for an Olympic medal with a simple motto, work hard and have fun as much.

Timeline

Tokyo 2021 then Paris 2024: one figure out of five, no regrets

July 2021, street final of the Tokyo Games. After the runs, Roos was on top. The figure round remained: five attempts, each scored separately. She could have secured it, laid down easy and snagged a medal. She brought the heat. A figure nailed on five. She finished fifth.

The next day, the daily AD headline on her line.

« I prefer falling while fighting. » — Roos Zwetsloot, AD – 2021

Three years later, in Paris, the scenario repeats even harder: tenth in the qualifiers, no final. The Dutch royal family watched her on her 24th birthday. In contests, she racks up podiums on the SLS circuit and the Dew Tour. To compare, the generation of Rayssa Leal turned these Games into a teen thing.

A children’s book and a Decathlon board named after her

Off the rails, she builds something else. Decathlon brought her into its skate team in 2023, released wheels with her name in 2024, then her very first pro board in 2025, with the Blossoms in Amsterdam part filmed by Sean Ringeling.

And in September 2025, she signs a youth book with Kosmos, Het geheime skategenootschap, the secret skate society. The heroine is named Roos. She trains in skate and hockey, and stumbles upon an abandoned skatepark deep in the woods. 144 pages, from age 9. She writes for the girl she used to be.

So what pushed her onto that ramp?

Rewind. A kid ditching the tidy hockey life for concrete. A knee that snaps at 18, a day of tears, then a comeback to the European podium. An Olympic final where she leads and still opts for the hard trick.

The answer lies in her Tokyo line. Roos prefers falling while fighting rather than finishing clean. That’s what lifted her up those sixteen steps: not chasing a record, but refusing to go back asking what could’ve happened. The record came along as a bonus.

Now a kid from Utrecht or Lyon can drop her name and see a woman on the most famous ramp in Los Angeles. That kind of image shifts what we dare to try.