After rocketing down a hill and weaving in and out of a line of tightly-placed pylons while perched on a skateboard, 15-year-old Jeremy Fugate analyzes his performance.
"It was really hard," the Michigan native said. "The cones were too close together, the hill was too steep. There were a bunch of problems."
The subject of his frustrations was the course at the World Championships of Slalom Skateboarding, which happened Friday and Saturday on streets west of downtown Ottawa.
The international competition saw racers weave their way through a series of pylons, trying to set the best time.
"I train day in, day out," said Claude Regnier, executive co-chair. "Six to eight hours a day, growing up and everything."
The sport is open to the casual boarder, and men and women of all ages.
Ottawa's own Bradley Schroeder said he got into the sport through his father.
"He hadn't done it in a long time and he went and bought a skateboard and I got into it right after that," said the 15-year-old.
On the other end of the spectrum is 65-year-old George Dubois, who said he remembers a time when skateboarding wasn't quite so mainstream.
"Nobody wanted to do what we were doing . . . with a skateboard that was made with roller-skate wheels," he said.
The host city for 2012's world championships hasn't yet been determined.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Stefan Keyes
