It was a visibly disappointed Fay De Fazio Ebert who approached the journalists after a rather difficult qualifying round for the young 14-year-old athlete. “I did my best,” she said with a trembling voice. In her three 45-second attempts to reach the final, she fell each time, finishing in 20e preliminary rank. The skateboarder may not have landed all of her tricks as she had hoped, but she’s happy to have made it this far. “Even though I didn’t achieve my goal, I’m so proud of myself.”
Fay De Fazio Ebert is the youngest athlete on the Canadian Olympic Team since 1976. Swimmer Robin Corsiglia won a bronze medal in the 4x100m medley at the Montreal Olympics when she was just 13 years old.
Even though her Olympic experience was short-lived, Fay De Fazio Ebert can still boast of having won gold at the 2023 Pan American Championships when she was only 13 years old. Did she feel extra pressure this year? “Maybe this time I was thinking in my head, ‘This is the Olympics,’” says the young athlete, who was galvanized by the people in the stands.
At her age, the Olympic experience is a little different. It was agreed that Fay would not sleep in the Olympic Village with most of the other athletes. “I’m with my mom, because I’m too young,” she explains. She still got to experience the excitement of the village. “It’s the perfect place to get into the mindset of the Games.”
Too young for defeat?
As she left the temporary stadium located near La Concorde, former Olympian in Tokyo in 2021 and president of Canada Skateboard, Annie Guglia, immediately took her young protégé in her arms. “I wanted to cry in the stands because for her it may seem like the end of the world, but at 14, it’s the beginning of her career.”
Fay De Fazio Ebert seems to be well surrounded. “Skateboarding is an individual sport, but above all very community-based. Everyone is proud of her,” assures Annie Guglia. She does not believe that the teenager will be subjected to external pressure regarding her performance at the Games.
But that’s not necessarily the case for all athletes. There is no minimum age set by the International Olympic Committee for participation in the Games. They leave it up to the sports federations to decide on policy in this regard.
It’s hard not to remember Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci’s flawless performance at the Montreal Games. She was just 14 years old when she won a total of five medals, three gold, one silver and one bronze.
Since his performances that dazzled the planet, the International Gymnastics Federation decided to raise the minimum age to participate in the Olympic Games from 14 to 15 years in 1981 and then to 16 years in 1997. The aim was to avoid physical but also psychological trauma in young children.
The International Olympic Committee had also strongly encouraged other federations to look into the issue after young skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for doping at the Beijing Winter Games in 2022. Her story sparked debate over whether she should be held responsible when she was only 15 years old. The International Skating Federation subsequently raised the age of participation to 17.
Countries can also impose their own limitations. In Canada, you had to be 13 years old to get a ticket to Paris.
Skateboarding, the discipline of the very
youth
The youngest participant in both skateboarding events this year is Zheng Haohao. Originally from China, she is just 11 years old. She was born a day before the start of the 2012 London Olympics and will celebrate her 12th birthday at the closing ceremony of the Paris Games.
“The reason skateboard athletes are so young […] “It’s that this is the first generation with as many opportunities as men. So there’s a lot of investment in the development of the sport on both sides, whereas in my time it wasn’t like that at all,” notes Annie Guglia, who began her professional career in 2005, but put it on hold due to a lack of opportunities. She returned to competition in 2017 to participate in the Tokyo Games at age 30.
Annie Guglia understands that in some sports, the pressure put on young athletes can be exaggerated, but she believes that the entourage around the athlete can make a real difference. “Fay is by far the most autonomous person I know,” she emphasizes. However, her success and the development of her career also depend on the involvement of her parents and her sports community.