13-YEAR-OLD CANADIAN FAY EBERT WON GOLD AT WOMEN’S SKATEBOARD PARK

The North American caught the attention of participants in the second day of skateboarding competition in one of the first sports of Santiago 2023.

Fay Ebert, at just 13 years old, won gold for Canada, giving her country the ninth medal at these Pan American Games. The skater continues to lead the podium and finally positions herself as the new winner of skateboarding with a total of 84.66 points. Her goal is to reach Paris 2024 and if she succeeds, she will become the youngest competitor representing Canada.

“It was a surprising victory, I can’t explain it. I think the skateboard track here is fantastic, it helps us a lot to grow the sport and allows people to train. This shows the progress that is being made. My plans in the future are to stay in skateboarding, train hard and I would also like to see people from other countries skateboarding,” said Ebert.

The Brazilian Raicca Ventura obtained second place with 82.54 points and thus gives Brazil the fourth medal in skateboarding and the fourteenth that the South American giant accumulates in the official medal table of the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games.

Third place (79.95 points) went to American Bryce Wettstein, who has been practicing the sport since the age of five. Bryce also competed at Tokyo 2020, where he placed sixth.

What also caught the attention of the spectators was that of the 8 competitors, none of them over 21 years old. The youngest is the Colombian Nicco Russi, 12 years old, and the oldest is the Chilean Josefina Tapia, 21 years old. Indeed, in this sport, there are no categories or age limits.

The day was also marked by the brotherhood shown between the young competitors, who, at the end of the final events, closed the competition with a collective hug full of emotion which earned applause from the public.

Written by Natalia Almonacid and Benjamín Iturra