Meet the 13-year-old Canadian skateboarder who's grinding her way to Paris 2024
Toronto's Fay De Fazio Ebert has rare gifts of skill, power, flow — and a 'natural fire'
For most 13-year-olds, the goals are modest: do well in school, get along with your friends, keep your parents off your back.
Few are contemplating competing at the Olympic Games. But that's where Toronto teenager and skateboarding sensation Fay De Fazio Ebert finds herself.
With a little more than a year to go before the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, she is in prime position to represent Canada on the world's biggest sporting stage.
"I didn't realize it would get to this point, it's kind of crazy," she told CBC Sports from a Canada Skateboard training camp in California. "When I was little, I thought maybe I could make it with running but never with skateboarding."
WATCH | Teen skateboarding phenom joins CBC Sports to discuss Paris 2024 quest:
It has been a rapid rise for Ebert, who was introduced to the sport when she was an eight-year-old. She quickly became competitive on the national scene and only narrowly missed representing Canada at the last Olympics in Tokyo, where skateboarding made its Olympic debut.
"She has the skill level to do very well," Canada Skateboard's High Performance Director Adam Higgins says. "At her age she's progressing really well and the sky's the limit for her. I see her qualifying for Paris."
Higgins says the key attributes in skateboarding are power and flow, both rare attributes for a 13-year-old skater.
"It's really hard to look at a 13-year-old and say you've got natural power but her ability to create amplitude and to fly around the bowl is remarkable," Higgins says. "Everything she does has to be as fast as possible, she tries to go as big as possible, so it's almost like toning down that natural fire in her."
Unlike many sports, age and experience aren't always what make a skateboarder successful. Higgins points out that many of the best female skateboarders in the world are actually under the age of 16.
"Skateboarding, like diving, like gymnastics is one of those body-weight sports where with a low centre of gravity you can do a lot of these moves at a young age. So young skateboarders can get really, really good."
The journey to Paris is a long one that requires passion, practice and money.
Ebert and her mother Elisabeth will visit Dubai and Argentina and other exotic locations to compete in the required qualification events. As an emerging sport, Canada Skateboard receives very little federal funding meaning that beyond some money from sponsors, the Ebert family must pay out of pocket to fuel this Olympic dream.
"It's your child and you want them to feel good and you want them to be proud of themselves. It's not about me being proud of her, I'm proud of her no matter what," Elisabeth says.
"We wouldn't be doing this if she wasn't serious and really wanted to do it. She loves competing, she loves competition. We say 'anytime you don't want to do this or you feel like it's something that is stressing you out, talk to us about it.'
'If this is something you don't want, let us know.'"
But the pressure of competition is something that Fay says she has always embraced whether competing in local events or against the best in the world.
"I like the pressure of having to do something in that moment," Ebert says. "It's a good feeling doing a great kick-flip or getting big air. I have never felt that I have to do competitions or train, I chose to because it excites me."
Through it all, Ebert is doing her best to be a normal teenager — despite usually practising for four hours a day, six days a week. She loves art, plays the ukulele, and is excited to graduate from eighth grade and head to high school next year.
"I like the separation between my skateboarding life and my school friends. I'm graduating this year from Grade 8," she says.
"I feel like it might be a lot harder in high school but right now I think I'm doing OK."
