PARIS — Fay De Fazio Ebert waited half her life to be an Olympian.
She is 14.
“When I was young, though, I was into track and field and cross-country, and I remember watching the games in Rio with Usain Bolt and Andre de Grasse, and I was like talking to my parents. I was like, ‘I want to go to the Olympics. When am I going?’ And I kept asking my parents, like, ‘when can I go to the Olympics?’ And my parents were like, ‘oh, you have to wait.’”
That was 2016. She had to wait eight years for Tuesday to come around.
And it didn’t go the way she wanted: She didn’t land a full run in three attempts and had no chance to advance to the final, but the experience was still sick. She was still stoked.
After a pep talk and a hand hold from her mother Elisabeth — Olympians need their moms too, you know — she got most of it down on the third try and scored 51.82 points.
“I was just with the coaches and I was like, ‘I need to see my mom.’ My mom has been a part of me skateboarding since I’ve been young. (She is 14). And she always took me to the skate park and spent hours at the skate park.
“Like, I want to keep skateboarding. It’s like, hey, it’s been 13 hours. And it’s like I just needed her energy. And, like, I think that really, like, I don’t know, made me, like, land my run, like, land most of my run. And even though, like, I didn’t put it down, like, I’m still so proud of myself.”
She is 14.
She rolled into the Olympic bowl, did a back-side nose grind on that rainbow thing, a front-side air on the corner of the box jump, a 50-50 to get speed for the back-side Smith, then a back-side air on the extension, front-side Smith grind to an alley-oop, then a lip slide around the corner, another front-side air into the spine and, then the trick that ended her Olympics, a kickflip Indy.
She does it all the time. She curved the corner and was going for a kickflip Indy but couldn’t land it. That’s skateboarding.
And she is 14.
Fortunately for her, by 2021 she already was into skateboarding in Toronto and it was on the Olympic programme for Tokyo.
“Like, it got announced and I was like, this is so sick. And then a couple months later, like, the coach, like, Canada Skateboard hit me up and was like, do you want to go to Brazil for, like, an Olympic qualifier? And I was like, yes. Like, this is so sick.”
She is 14, an Olympian so young that she cannot stay in the athletes’ village. That’s OK. She visited with her mom and she doesn’t feel like an athlete anyway.
“This whole thing is so cool, but going to the opening ceremony and being like, damn, not feeling like you’re an Olympian because I’m a skateboarder, and it doesn’t really feel the same way.
“When I’m skating, I don’t really feel like an athlete. I feel like a skateboarder, obviously. But just seeing all the other athletes at the opening ceremony was so sick, floating down the river and I got to stay for the part where the Eiffel Tower lit up and that was so sick.”
And then it got past her bedtime. Kidding.
She was staying in a hotel room with her mom. Her father Andrew and younger brother Adrian joined them a couple of days ago and they’re all going to bunk in together at an Airbnb. And they are going to put a smile on the end of this experience because, like she said, it has been sick.
“It’s like a mixed emotion because I’m so happy that I’m here and I got to experience all this. I didn’t put down my run, but I tried my best and I’m really excited that everybody is here supporting me. I see all those Canadian flags and the stage and it’s amazing.”
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She finished 20th and that is a bummer. But she’s an Olympian at 14 and could do it again at 18 in Los Angeles. And at 22 in Brisbane. And, well, you get it.
“I’m obviously so proud of her that she’s come this far,” her mom said. “I mean, making it to the Olympics is huge. Of course, I’m sad, but I think a lot of that sadness or feeling bummed out is knowing how she’s feeling. Can’t help it as a parent, but feel that pain. Knowing that she’s going to be disappointed in herself, and I don’t want her to feel that way.
“Of course, we all wanted it to end in the way where she landed her full run and she was smiling and happy because that’s always something she talks about, landing her run and feeling good. So, still proud of her.
“It’s just hard. I know it’s going to be tough for a few days and I think after all of it’s settled that she will come back stronger and fight a little harder. Yeah, I mean, she’s only 14, so there’s a lot of growth to happen there.”
On Tuesday, the 22 skateboarders in the park competition ranged in age from 11 to 23. They are children, teens and young women skating together and against one another, but mostly together, just like they do at the park in the neighbourhood.
Except the Eiffel Tower was in the distance and thousands of fans were screaming, singing and waving flags. De Fazio Ebert has big-game experience — she won a gold medal at the 2023 Pan Ams — so she didn’t think she was feeling intimidated.
“I really like the crowd and, like, the energy of all the people. Maybe, like, in my head I was like, this is the Olympics! But, I don’t know.”
She’ll figure it out later. At age 14, Ebert flew around the Olympic skateboarding bowl three times, not like an athlete but like a skateboarder, trying with every ounce of will to put her run down, her helmet bedecked with a white feather from her pet duck Richard.
Yes. Dick Duck.
Sick.