Thursday, January 18

Athlete Profile: Christian Mongenais

By Press Release
Vans.com

This amateur skater can only go up

Christian Mongenais is like a lot of fourteen-year-old boys. He loves skateboarding, rides every chance he gets and dreams about what it would be like to be a professional skateboarder. On January 27-28th in Orange, California, Christian will get his chance to become one. He is one of an elite group of amateur riders who will be coming from around the globe hoping to gain notoriety and land a professional sponsorship from Vans during the Vans Amateur World Championships.

Hailing from Montreal, Canada, Christian became interested in skateboarding around the age of six or seven when he used to watch his neighbor skate. Before long, he took up the sport himself and by age ten, began to really commit himself to it. As fate would have it, Christian would soon have an important meeting.

One day while riding on the street course at his local skatepark, Christian met Vans professional-sponsored rider Pierre Luc Gagnon by accident, literally. The 2000 X-Games silver medalist and a previous Vans Amateur World Championship winner collided with Christian on the street course. After helping Christian to his feet and making sure there was no damage done, the two struck up a friendship and still often ride together at the park, along with another Vans professional rider, Max Dufour.

Christian credits Pierre Luc with encouraging him to start skating on the halfpipe. The halfpipe can be intimidating to most, but through Pierre Luc's direction and support, Christian has become an accomplished halfpipe rider. Only three years after starting out on the ramp, he placed first in one of the Vans World Amateur Championships qualifying stops. In preparing for the contest, Christian received a lot of coaching from his mentor. Pierre Luc has told Christian that he needs to visualize his run before the contest and practice in his mind.

In the years Christian has been riding, he has demonstrated that he is dedicated to the sport. He rides at the skatepark three or four times a week for two to three hours at a time. He is a unique rider because he loves both halfpipe and street disciplines and strives to excel at both of them. In fact, Christian is so dedicated to skateboarding that even after breaking his arm, he competed in another vert contest in Montreal and managed to place third, cast and all.

His ultimate goal as a skateboarder is to become a professional skater. He looks forward to traveling the world and riding in contests for a living like his friends Pierre Luc and Max. He sees the Vans World Amateur Championships as a stepping stone to accomplish his goals.

As young as Christian is, he has managed to pick up a number of sponsors along the way. Currently, he is sponsored by Control Boards, DVS shoes, U-Project pads, Rellik bearings, Billabong Canada and most recently, Empire Skateshop.