For aggressive inline skating champ Fabiola da Silva, going as big and shredding as hard as the guys do is just part of the job. So is having a killer bod.

By: Steve Mazzucchi

If you think of inline skating as simply a cool cardio activity, you've never seen Fabiola da Silva do it. A 5'2" whirling dervish on wheels, this Brazilian beauty tackles ramps, rails and half-pipes at full speed - sliding, spinning, flipping and floating in ways that appear to defy physics. (Skeptical? Do a search of her name on YouTube.) And she doesn't do it just for kicks. Her exploits have led to seven X Games golds (most ever for a female), more than 50 LG Action Sports World Tour medals and an Aggressive Skaters Association rule change allowing girls to compete against guys. "I never thought that Rollerblading would take me to America and that I'd make money from it," she admits. But that's what happens when talent, passion, guts and fitness converge in the body of a woman who isn't afraid to fly.

Da Silva's trajectory begins in her hometown of Rio de Janeiro, where, from an early age, she proved to be quite athletic. "I was always playing sports," she says. "Usually guy sports, which were more interesting." That meant volleyball, basketball and kickboxing - she and her older sister were national champs in their weight classes. Then, when she was 13, her father gave her a pair of skates - but not fancy inlines like the ones in these photos. Nope, hers were of the old-school variety - two wheels in front, two in back - and she promptly rode them to the local skate park, dropped in on a 14-foot vert ramp and tried a few stunts. A year later, her mother saved up to buy her inline skates, and everything changed. "They came with better wheels and bearings," recalls da Silva, who also answers to Fabby or Fab. "I fell the first day and scraped my knees and elbows, but it was so fun I didn't care."

From there, things moved fast, literally and figuratively. When a couple of American pros, Arlo Eisenberg and Chris Edwards, visited the biggest skate park in South America, she rode with them on the vert ramp, showcasing her knack for gnarly tricks and big airs. They exchanged info, and six months later she got an invitation to X Games 2 in Rhode Island. She wasn't as nervous as one might guess. "When you're young, you're fearless - you don't care that much," she explains. "I was only 16, and I'd never been out of the country. I just wanted to relax and skate." And just like that, she won gold, got sponsored and, two years later, made California her new home.

As her skating progressed, da Silva quickly became the face of a burgeoning sport, dominating contest after contest in the half-pipe and in the park, where competitors perform tricks on ramps, tabletops and rails. It didn't hurt that she was attractive, friendly - her native tongue is Portuguese, but she mastered English to better communicate with her legions of fans - and amazingly fit, thanks to a disciplined exercise regimen. "When I started working out, my skating became 110% better," she recalls. "It made a difference so quickly." It also kept her off the sidelines. "The sport is so hard on your body that you need strong muscles to prevent injuries," she explains. "Training in the gym is my second passion. It's like skating, part of my daily routine."

As her taut core, powerful legs and heavy-metal routine music - Metallica, AC/DC, Iron Maiden - boosted da Silva to ever-greater heights, she became the idol of every young female skater and neared a level of parity with men almost never seen in the history of sports.

At the same time, fewer and fewer women dared compete against her. So it was that in 2002, the Aggressive Skaters Association created the "Fabiola Rule," allowing the best women to compete in men's finals. While that has made it tougher for her to top the podium, she has more than held her own - she finished fourth in the vert at the 2006 LG Action Sports World Championships. How'd the guys take that? "They're used to seeing me around, and they know I'm trying out there," she observes. "It's kind of hard sometimes to be beat by a girl, but they have no choice." She has had to make changes as well. "It's really hard skating with boys, but it pushes me to learn new tricks," she says. "I just condition my body so I can compete, and if I see a guy doing a trick, I think, Why not me?" She answered that very question in 2005 when she attempted a move only a handful of guys have landed - a double backflip in the half-pipe. After practicing into a foam pit, she tried it on an actual ramp, with mixed results.

"It's a pretty scary trick, a blind trick, not my favorite," she says. "I got hurt a lot of times doing it." She has hit the back of her helmet on the ramp and smacked the lip with her face. But when the moment's right, she has also nailed it. "I really can do anything I want to, but it's not something I can do all the time," she says. Now ensconced in Costa Mesa, California, da Silva's biggest challenge may be staying motivated. While inline skating has seen a dip in popularity (it was dropped from the X Games in 2005), she still loves the sport she discovered 15 years ago. "It's just so unique," she says. "I can do whatever I want, learn my own tricks, create my own style and be myself," she says. "That makes me happy."

When she's not skating, training, wakeboarding, surfing or hanging out with friends and family, she's spreading that love. Through the got milk? Gravity Tour, she travels across California sharing a healthy, inspiring message with high-schoolers. "I like showing kids that doing what you love and making money is possible if you follow your dreams." And watching her soar head over skates high into the sky, it's hard not to believe she might be right.