Introducing Sweden’s Skateboarding Sweetheart:Vilma Stal.

Vilma Stal drops her backpack to the floor, plops down on the couch and pulls her black Nike beanie down so far that it nearly covers her eyes. “I skated with Heitor today,” she says. That’s Heitor Da Silva, professional skateboarder signed with top teams including Adidas and Palace. And he’s one of Stal’s favorite skaters.

Stal fell in love with skating in her hometown of Stockholm, Sweden, when she was in middle school. As Stal struggled with the trials of adolescence, skating allowed her to blow off steam and have fun. Stal dreamed of building a career around skateboarding and traveling to skate for different brands, but she worried that the impending start of high school meant that she’d have to give up her passion. Then her friend Elias Mensi told her about Bryggeriets Gymnasium.

Bryggeriets is a high school in Malmö, Sweden, built around a skate park. The school boasts an impressive roster of professional skateboarder graduates, including Oskar Rozenberg, John Dalquist and Ville Wester. Stal yearned to leave Stockholm, and Bryggeriets was the perfect reason to leave. So, she packed up her life and moved four hours south to Malmö to pursue skateboarding.

At Bryggeriets, Stal learns skills including how to “slam,” first aid and new tricks. She also gets to meet and practice with professional skaters. One of two girls in a class of 27, Stal loves being a woman in a male-dominated field. Being female helped her stand out when Stal met Nike SB team manager Danijiel “Jugga” Stankovic during her second year at the school. When the team visited Bryggeriets, she impressed the professionals with her talent and humor so much that Nike SB offered her a sponsorship.

Despite her success at such a young age, Stal hates competing. “To think about slamming in front of all these people, are they going to laugh?” Stal said. “The name ‘competition’ scares me. I don’t want to come in second place.”

She’ll swallow her nerves to compete later this week at Copenhagen Open, one of the year’s most anticipated skateboarding festivals. The festival comes just days after Nike released Stal’s first feature film, “Not Here By Luck,” on YouTube. At only 18 years old, Stal is just getting started. The skateboarding world is eagerly waiting to see: what’s next for Vilma Stal?

Updated June 11, 2023.