For 14-year-old skateboarder Fay De Fazio Ebert, age is just a number

The boat parade down the Seine had just ended, it was pouring rain and suddenly the Canadians were sprinting.

Fay De Fazio Ebert, the 14-year-old skateboarder who is Canada's youngest Olympian in Paris, was caught in the middle of the rush.

"I'm like, why is everybody running right now? And I look up and the Eiffel Tower is there, like so close to us," De Fazio Ebert recalled of her opening ceremony experience.

"And then we go into the little stadium area, but it's still open, so it's still pouring rain. And they do a few more performances and stuff. The Eiffel Tower turns dark and it starts like lighting up and doing this whole light show. And it was so amazing. It was so sick."

At that moment, the spectacle of the Olympics revealed itself to De Fazio Ebert. But the Toronto native does not seem fazed ahead of her park competition on Tuesday.

"It just kind of feels like every other contest because I've been going to these World Skate contests for so long. It's just another competition," she said.

WATCH | De Fazio Ebert relives Pan Am gold-medal run:

De Fazio Ebert has skated internationally since 2019, when she made her debut at the world championships in Brazil on a direct-message invite from Canada Skateboard. She won gold at the Pan Am Games last year.

The Olympics, of course, are on another level. But you'd never know from the way De Fazio Ebert talks about it. 

The mindset seems to come from her mom, Elizabeth De Fazio, who over the past five years has travelled the world with her daughter and partially funded her athletic endeavours.

The two will often fly to California for training as Fay De Fazio Ebert has not yet found a coach in Toronto. Instead, her mom usually just sits and watches her daughter practice