How Gymnastics STOLE Parkour... 

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*changes my about section from free runner to gymnast*

I grew up as a Gymnast and i never saw anybody looking down on Parkour at a Gymnast/Coach level. It's another movement sport that has really unique and challenging movements. Usually when i go to an Open Gym i see Parkour people, Karate people and Gymnasts. If you can safely do your skill with the equipment nobody says anything. Your local Gym might just suck. The regulatory body in charge of Gymnastics are just the worst in any movement sport. The entire governing body are Boomers and they enforce some pretty dumb rules. That's why a lot of top level Gymnasts switch sport or try out for Cirque Du Soleil.

How to stole a sport that is free and made by the community, and turn it into a boring thing full of rules by people unrelated to the parkour, i imagine an old grumpy guy rule as chairman parkour comittee disgusting in every way

All FIG can do is run and promote specific forms of 'parkour' competition (which in effect will become the Olympic version of the sport), it doesn't mean that they have a monopoly on parkour competition, and it certainly doesn't mean that people engaged in parkour necessarily have to give any credence or attention to FIG events. Yes, it is no doubt annoying to have FIG rock up and nab the Olympic parkour, but welcome to the club on that one - any number of smaller sports have been through this with international governing bodies as part of the difficult transition from fringe activity to 'mainstream' sport. Generally speaking, people who love the sports in question eventually reach a degree of acceptance with the 'official, approved' Olympic version of the sport. Most will have at least some interest in watching it whatever their misgivings about the way it is organised or how it represents the culture of the sport. Some competitors find their inclinations and talents lie that way and follow the pathways that potentially lead to the Olympics, others choose other ways to express themselves within the sport, either in other competitions or in non-competitive forms. As you mentioned it in the video, Mountain biking is a perfect example of this. There is plenty of room in MTBing for all the different styles and forms of competition, and the vast majority of these are not governed in any way by the UCI or national governing bodies.

Eyyy wondered when we'd be getting this one! Nice job broheem

You forgot to mention one thing that sealed the deal for me. The first FIG competition destroyed Phosky career, the best parkour athlete on earth

11:31 yeah one time I got hit by a snowboarder at some pretty fast speeds, let’s just say nothing got injured

thank you for making this video, I was completely in the dark about this whole situation cus I stopped using social media and just relied on a few trusted fellows (you included) so if there are any major updates I would really appreciate a follow up, if you decided to make one :) keep up with the bangers!!

I'm not hugely into parkour, and I'm not a huge sports fan altogether, so I really shouldn't have an opinion on this. But I do enjoy watching parkour videos online, and i do enjoy watching professional cycling. What attracts me in professional cycling is the enormous physical efforts going into an endurance sport like that, but it does help that an event like the Tour de France is an internationally recognized, professional competition, with major roads being closed for hours every day, all over France, for three weeks, so 200 cyclists can have a race. And of course this goes back to the roots of professional cycling. The first Tour de France was organised by a national sports newspaper, riders were sponsored either by countries or by big companies, and the various regional authorities and media quickly tagged along to report on everything related to Le Tour, as they saw a perfect opportunity to market to large groups of spectators. Parkour is very different though, it's part of an urban culture that has an ambiguous relation with rules and regulations at best. Part of the attraction is "getting away" with a line in a prohibited location, doing things the general public find scary or antisocial, challenging the conformity of society in the most literal physical and spatial manner. Its current culture is mainly driven by individual athletes posting their own videos on social media, and the community decides what's cool and what isn't, simply by following or unfollowing these individual channels and athletes. In many ways this is similar to how skateboarding culture grew from the 1970s through to the 2000s. At some point, yeah, sure, some regulation may make some sense to govern official international competitions and maybe to regulate basic safety precautions at training facilities. But that's hard to square with illegally climbing a multistory carpark, evading security, and doing a high impact jump into a privately owned and restricted backyard, and posting it with a "screw the law" hiphop or punk track in the background. With regulation, you lose a lot of that rogueness of the subculture: to be officially recognized, you first need to conform to the norms of regular sports and society in general. To my mind, as an outsider, it's an intrinsic contradiction for a sport that is built on breaking the rules to be organised under an official ruling body. That would be like having a thieves guild or a Federation International For Assassins (FIFA).

I feel the same about Olympic skateboarding. It's commentated by idiots that have no clue. They're established commentators rather than using people who know what they're talking about. The monetisation of sports ends up stopping people from getting involved. I'm 45, I've skated since I was a kid, when all there was were magazine photos, then skate videos. I skate for fun, I use a walking stick for my pushing foot and I skate where and when I want, doing what I want to have fun. It's freedom. The introduction of ruling bodies into any sport immediately begins the process of stagnation. Once certain tricks start winning medals that becomes the focus, not flow, creativity or steeze factor. The things that would make me say hell yeah she deserves gold are different to a ruling body. So to me it's the kiss of death to skating, as freedom to do what you want on a plank of wood will become even more mired in "Can you do a kickflip", and just riding to have fun becomes lost. At the end of the day people need exercise, but while the exposure for a sport might be good, it brings assumptions that I'll never be able to do that, where just riding down a short transition is a good first step that anyone can take. I feel it's going to set skateboarding back, or that there will be a schism between Olympic skating and real skating, which would then go back underground, robbing both sides of talent

If you want to protest correctly as a parkour community, you should go where FIG is headquarted and just all take turns Horizontal Wall runs off of their building. Nothing would be more parkour-esque than a bunch of old stodgy men waving their fists at people running on their building.

I've been a mountain biker for three decades now, and saw something similar happen when the UCI appointed itself our sanctioning body. Ultimately, a lot of us realized...it didn't matter. We still ride how we want and progress the sport how we want. If you want to compete, there are plenty of local grassroots competitions which have a thousand times more soul and heart than a UCI competition. The downside is no Olympics unless you compete within UCI, but with how corrupt the Olympics have become, is that really a bad thing anymore? Regardless of what FIG does or Parkour's inclusion in the Olympics, it ultimately won't do anything to keep people from progressing, evolving, and enjoying parkour how they want.

The International sports federations are ruining all sport. they tried to ruin snowboarding several times by insisting on standardized trick rules and that every athlete had to be able to do all variations, which is stupid and unnecessary, and frankly quite dangerous and excluding for athletes

What me really thrives me off in thes FISE events is the speed competion... Gymnastics has nothing to do with any kind of race its just about the aesthetics of movement and speed competitions don't fit in anything that has something to do with gymnastics...

top notch

I'm proud to say that the Icelandic gymnastics federation honored our request and voted against parkour being made a gymnastic discipline

Meanwhile the insurance companies won't let me teach "parkour" at the gymnastics gym I work at, so we call it "ninja flow."

Well, personally I see parkour as Storror. Their lifestyle, their friendship, the laughter, battling your fears, having your buddies back. How can these be in a competition? For me, the culture means so much more than seeing our sport becoming like gymnastics which all they do is for medals and Olympics otherwise it's meaningless. I mean have you ever seen a documentary about gymnastics life? Do they have anything like Supertramp or roof culture Asia which makes you fall in love deeply with Parkour? Parkour is extremely different from gymnastics in every way. I hope STORROR stays true to the culture and keeps inspiring loads of other freerunners.

gymnast: yo check out this trick freerunner: sure try it on concrete

Great research Jimmy! 😍 To add something: Parkour was not included to Paris 2024 because FIG didn't want to exclude any of gymnastics disciplines from olympics and there was no room for additional one. Another IOC reason for not adding pk to Paris: parkour doesn't have strong International structures as a competitive discipline. So, about the future of parkour: We should still work together to create strong community with national governing bodies working together. Parkour should be shaped by us, and under FIG Its bery unlikely to happen. I personally hope FIG will give up parkour at some point. The reason can be for example: not enough money or some changes in board.

Know the story and still hoped for a happy ending 😅

You, sir, have grown into a documentarian, a point of reference and above all an important voice in the community! Very well done video, as always...

With all these discussion of parkour going to be in the olympics or not, we lose the effects that would have these steps on the athletes. Nowadays athletes train parkour coz its fun but when it will be once in the olympic, i fear winning becomes the most important thing for many coaches and athletes. And with that we will experience what all the other organized sports already have: mental pressure, banned skills, doping... I think these problems come naturally when sports are organized and and its sad

When I was about twelve I started doing parkour. After about a year I also started doing gymnastics. To this day I still love both sports and my sister also does rithmical gymnastics but because of my insight on both parkour and gymnastics I can tell that they are really different sports. Parkour is not a branch of gymnastics. Sure they both include acrobatical movement but their style, discipline and culture is completely different. Although I like gymnastics and I like doing it, I still wouldn't entrust a gymnastics federation to govern parkour as a sport.

Parkour is so much more than just moving on things, its a whole culture, lifestyle, and way of seeing and interacting with the world. Someone whos not actually involved in that can't possibly understand Parkour and has no business dictating anything in it. Parkour belongs to the people who have it as a part of their lives.

As jimmy said, we can just hope that parkour remains represented and the community remains its own and doesnt get dissolved into gymnastics

You need to collab and have a chat with Nile Wilson

Begin Rant: Gymnastics is about scores and often opaque subjective criteria. Making parkour gymnastics means scores are based on centimeters and regulation "proper" moves. Skateboarding in swimming pools and boardwalk skate ramps was cool. Their sport "grew up", became incredibly commercial, and they went to the Olympics. So... parkour grows up, the old white men in IOC get more powerful, and parkour changes to meet THEIR CRITERIA. Geez. I have no doubt that FIG is finding ways to win over parkour -- it doesn't have to be bribes either. Get credentialed and we have all these superduper gyms and huge payouts! Woot-woot. THE REAL POISON lurks inside FIG and other opaque sporting bodies (including the IOC). Rich powerful #$%&! men get to decide what happens in the backrooms and no one, absolutely no one gets a say in the matter. That includes the big-name parkour athletes. AND this rich powerful elite gets away with all sorts of evil as demonstrated in the sexual abuse inside U.S. gymnastics. Professional cycling has the same type of rich powerful old men and their coverup and abuse were drugs. MY QUESTION is what's on either side of the math equation? Parkour loses XYZ while gaining something? Losing soul yet gaining exposure for "the good of the sport" and a few selectively groomed by FIG? End Rant. Sigh.

Skateboarding doesn't want skateboarding in the Olympics. I don't know one person who's happy its there. A handful of top level vert skaters like Tony Hawk and Street league type skateboarders were pushing for it, while 90% of skateboarders were pushing back and pissed off.

Well done another good one 😎👌🏿 I just want to mention that from David's point of view it is normal to be involved with Gymnastics as his Grand father and his father both did gymnastics in the Paris Firefighters and sent him to Gymnastics when he was a kid. I really believe he did what he thought would be best for the discipline. As you describe, you are right about the politics. It is so corrupt! Parkour for an individual will always be freeeeeeee. 🎼 it's all about the money, money, money 🎵 😄💰

The difference between gymnastics and Parkour is we have to remember we train outside in our natural environment. I mean I know we have gyms and that and competitions. Gymnastics is in a gym.

Here in the Philippines, parkour is actually under the obstacle sports commission, not gymnastics. And I think that's a good thing.

This whole argument is dumb. And the viewpoints expressed in this video are way off! Firstly, no-one owns a sport - and never will. But if FIG wish to enter the parkour space by establishing a form of competition that focuses more on the gymnastic elements - then that is entirely their provocative. Similarly if another company wish to set up a rival league with different values, then that is also fair. Ultimately, whoever creates a product that resonates most with people will prevail. This is virtually no different to every other sport - and should be encouraged, as competition between parties leads to innovation and advancement.

Really good video. However, in my experience I do not feel a tension between gymnastics and parkour - and Suni Lee literally lives in my neighborhood! Every gymnast I’ve met has been nice and at my parkour gym we often get gymnasts who age out of most gymnastics schools, but wish to continue in a sport with transferable skills.

Parkour (I'm just a spectator, mind you) is about observing your environment and engaging and moving in it. Architecture. This can't be made an olympic sport or competition of any kind. It's just a mismatch of ideas.

Personally I don't like any parkour competitions because I don't see the essence or spirit of the sport either being rewarded or displayed. It's not something you can stick a number on and why do we need to? In this sense, and seeing the money grabbers coming in fast, parkour is dead, long live the spirit of parkour.

"i got a phone call from FIG and they 'convinced' me to make a positive video about them... and then I went and bought a load of new sports gear, a computer and a holiday..."

Still *Parkour is not gymnastics*

Easy fix: Parkour folks swallow a bit of their pride, rename their sport to freerunnning or something else and create a governing body before the FIG can get their hands on it. Either that or just create a new governing body to compete with FIG. Darts did that with the PDC to counter the BDO for its lack of proffesionalism and lack of protecting the players interests. Worked brilliantly.

I've been involved with the Sports Federation in Norway, which gave me a distaste for the concept. It's basically an ever-growing organization of people who live off state funding and funding from the sports communities, while giving very little back, like a giant parasitic wurm. If the money were distributed to all the local sports clubs and communities instead I can guarantee that it would accomplish 20 times more.

dont let the shit that happened to snowboarding happen to your sport!

I always look forward to your videos they are always so interesting and knowledgeable! I commend your efforts to always providing such interesting information about various aspects of parkour! Thank you JimmyTheGiant

An impressive example of how money and capitalistic monopoly can terraform reality in society to the whim of those who have it

As a freeskier and snowboarder I'd encourage anyone involved in Parkour to fight organisations like FIG with everything you have. Freeskiing began as a direct reaction to the oppressive nature of FIS and the desire of a lot of people to be more expressive and creative after taking inspiration from snowboarders. As the sport grew it took attention away from FIS approved disciplines like moguls and ariels which are basically the snowsports versions of gymnastics. This caused FIS to do exactly what FIG has done with parkour and just claim freeskiing as its own. Since then competitions have become less and less about style and creativity and more about who can do the biggest spin. This is so bad in the modern day that at the most recent Xgames the bloke who won big air was genuinely angry that none of his creative tricks scored well but the one huge spin he did out of frustration won him the gold. Additionally since the only reliable way to make money in the sport is by competing in FIS approved competitions the level of creativity in the sport has decreased significantly in the last 10 years because the top athletes are forced to train certain tricks in order to score well in competitions, rather than being able to be expressive and push the sport in different directions. In summary, f#ck FIS.

I have followed gymnastics for 40 years. I don't think that FIG can be trusted with parkour.

There are world class iconic surfers like Laird Hamilton and rock climbers like Alex Honnold who have zero interest in any form of formal competition including the Olympics. There will always be those who just love the sport for the joy, community, purity, and those who want the trophies, dollars, and fame. For good or bad the same will likely happen with Parkour / Freerunning in the future. Great video Jimmy!

Profits And Capitalism is the prime reason for this way of grouping and organizing sports.

25min video what a blast 🔥🔥 keep it up🤙

I always avoided your vids because of that thumbnail with you making gape mouth betasoyface... but after finally having a go, they are actually quite good. I'm glad i gave you a chance.

All national Parkour organizations need to unite under a new international parkour federation now! Then they need build an aggressive legal team, copyright and trademark everything, and then fight for their sport or loose it forever!

I say you should start up a “Freerunner’s Independent Governance" to compete with the other F.I.G. If they get litigious over initials, just switch to F.R.I.G.

It blows my mind that parkour racing aint a thing, come on it would be the first thing id do if i could do parkour: "im surly faster than you getting to the other side of [insert obstacle course here], you have no chance" Imagine something like formula 1 where you have those iconic tracks but instead of having it loked in one place and only used by competitors in competitions they could be biult anywere and be open for the public in non copetitions (Sorry for bad english, not my first language)

Hey man. Just wanted to say you sparked my interest in parkour up again. I decided to start training again and hit a standing full a little under 20 minutes ago something I’ve never even attempted. I just wanna say thank you for this spark! You legit have no idea. Any tips for a southern USA boy who has no friends to train with?

lets go another upload!

If there is any Olympic sport related to parkour, it should be something similar to either AoM or WCT.

Our parents put us in gymnastics to stop us from jumping out of trees, down flights of stairs and over huge bushes.

In future gymnastic will say calisthenics is also gymnastic Mark my words 🥺

the fis did change my sport of honor but today they managed to do it perfectly now we have some super nice park shapers ho know how to do it correctly

I train at the gym where that free G was filmed and even the coach’s call it free running

This is a great video! Im personally in a really interesting position on this whole debate, as i work in the 'parkour' section of a gymnastics club. It is concerning that to be legally able to work in this position, the only accreditation i needed was in traditional male artistic gymnastics (MAG) and could have no knowledge of parkour, if it wasnt for the fact i have been training and consuming parkour content for years. While i am glad that parkour is being made accessible to kids through this program, i do think it is very important that it is distinguished from gymnastics, as i obviously teach a completely different move set to traditional gymnastics. all in all, learning parkour indoors on soft mats etc is really good for young kids as it is likely safer and is going to result in the sports growth long term, as long as the coaches have parkour specific accreditation and education themselves.

So gymnastics is the road bike equivalent for parkour

No he has fallen to the dark side. raid shadow legends is his sponsor 😢

Asde from World Chase Tag, I hardly see any proper Parkour competition outside. A Ninja Warrior rip-off should be made since most Parkour athletes are elligible for it. Freerunning and Tricking are the sports that can be target by the FIG for inclusion in my opinion. At some point, some athletes want to make a living out of the discipline and not just appreciate it as an underground phenomenon. It is a matter of time, a close one really, that Parkour and Freerunning will be held by the governing bodies mentioned and will become strictly ruled. Again, the advantage of such sports is that it is made for urban-outside world and no specific space is needed for its practice unlike the likes of Football or Basketball for instance. On one hand, the problem of being governed will be about the creation of such professional spaces to train athletes for professional competitions. On the other hand, if people want to have it as a sport and passion, they can always do by training like every other athlete is doing right now. HOWEVER, if the governing body who appropriated the sport will INTERFERE with other activities such as WCT, now, sir, we got a problem. It would be like FIG interfering with any competitions of Tricking because it is Gymnastics-related and got no permission to use the Gymnastics as such. In this fashion, we are looking a Sports like being an Intellectual Property that needs permission from the owner for use... imagine the dystopia.

Me after playing mirrors edge for 15 minutes: hello my fellow parkourists

I see sports and even sports fans (traditional sports that is) as people who like rules and structure. They don't question their governing bodies as much because they like the rules and structure that has been set up even if there is some shady stuff going on. Snowboarding, skateboarding, and parkour thrive on the lack of limitation and rules. While competition is possible in the sport, it can not be run anywhere close to how gymnastics is. We have governing bodies, but they don't tell us how to build our gyms or what skills to teach. We need that freedom and flexibility.

The one video I watch and am one of the first 100 to see it it's a Raid Shadow Legends ad

It seems like a majority of the Parkour community is opposed to FIG. Surely, if Parkour/free runners just agree to not cooperate en masse, then is there anything FIG can do about it? Free runners have built the sport this far on their own, why can't they just continue to do that? If all the top names and best teams stay away from FIG and only associate with pure free running events/comps, then surely FIG would lose interest? Is there something I'm missing here? It seems to me that FIG only really owns it in name only? They might hold the keys to the Olympics for now, but if free runners value being free more than that then does anything really change?

I officially hate FIG

Thanks for the shout out haha!

Jimmy, these x sport deep dives are awesome. Will you ever do a hacky sack/ foot bag episode?

1 for the algorithm Jimmy The whole FIG situation has been grinding my gears for years. Nothing can really be done about it :(

Gymnastics is so soft compared to parkour

This is what capitalism does and will always do.

Traceur here. I liked the video. I know a large chunk of this is you expressing your opinions, but that does not mean you nullify others' in the community, especially when you are representing Parkour to the mainstream. I know plenty of practitioners who use the word "traceur" to describe themselves and what they do, they exist, even in England. It does not matter most of them are not popular pros(some of them still are). Secondly, I get the point of competitions. You want to get Parkour into the mainstream and you want to support athletes, that is all good. But these people are minority, and even to them Parkour is "competitive" during the competitions, as much as I can understand. And it is not rare to see a few of them performing in competitions with a non-competitive and openhearted approach. You can not neglect most of the people who do it for fun, fitness, freedom, etc., to whom Parkour is non-competitive and its philosophy and values are important. A little bit of mentioning of these things would go a long way and keep the spirit of Parkour alive. Peace.

Please, please. please do an Ndubz vid. I'm not a fan of Parkour but have watched a few of your vids about it. Your random other docs are amazing. Thank you so much, you are great at what you do :-)

why do we even need governing bodys at all

I had no idea about this whole situation before watching this video so this is purely based on personal opinion but couldn't this all be fixed if FIG just reach out to organisations who have hosted parkour competitions in the past and base the olympic discipline on that? You can definitely do a discipline for Parkour so I'm curious to see how they are gonna handle it. Also, I can tell from this video a lot of people will disagree with me here but I feel like Parkour is just a street version of Gymnastics. I used to do Parkour every single day and I don't see a problem with it being under Gymnastics. Yes our culture is very different and Parkour is more a lifestyle than a sport, but if you look at it side by side with Gymnastics it's clear as day that it's originated from that. We don't have to give up on our culture just because it's classified as Gymnastics in the olympic ruleset, that's purely the sport part of Parkour we are talking about, the lifestyle of it is a totally different thing that no one can take away from us. I feel the best thing to do is to embrace Parkour becoming a more respected and honored sport and keep the sick street culture for it. It may be a discipline now, but it will always belong on the street. In it's roots Parkour is not about competition and it doesn't ever have to be either, just look at stuff like cycling, something everyone does casually for transport but it also has a competitive side to it that exists in the olympics. I feel the key is to find the harmony between Parkour as a culture and Parkour as a sport, because both exist and both a very different and shouldn't be lumped together. In the end, we will still have our freerunning gyms, we still still have dope Parkour teams putting out vids and we will still have competitions outside of the olympics that are made for cultural side of Parkour. That's just my take on all this, I haven't checked up on how the situation is currently but hopefully it's taken a step in the right direction for the Parkour community.

I think that it’s good to have FIG own parkour, but they don’t know the culture So (like skateboarding) the (IOC) should look at national or international governing bodies.

UCI have a similar relationship to non-kosher bikes and cycling events. For instance, recumbents were banned by UCI in the 1930’s (or something), but recumbent biking and racing still goes on in other formats. I can see parkour doing the same. Not everyone who goes to the gym wants to compete in Olympic weightlifting. Parkour arose - according to the lore - from people hanging out together and trying stuff. And it will continue that way for most people. That said, I’m not sure having a brand of energy drink take over and run a travelling show is more democratic, transparent or conducive to a health evolution of the sport. For my son, parkour being under the gymnastics umbrella means he has an opportunity to get training. In principle, I am against competitive sports because the fundamental idea, that one person is the best and the rest are losers, is revolting.

I do HEMA, and im afraid we are next.

Parkour in the 2028 Olympics but one key item missing. All the pads and helmets I saw nobody wearing.

We still have chance parkour is not gymnastics! Don't you think it will great if we have our people working in Olympics. We need to stand together!

I know fine rightly those bullets at 6:23 were meant for me, weren't they? Well how about fuck you, and also great job on the video 🤣 I also like what you've done by putting out the death of gymnastics video before this one just to set the scene a bit.

Can you make a video about gtramp?

came back cause the most recent paris olympics opening which i watched live, it's DEF gonna be in the 2028 olympics in my opinion, they were hinting at it WAYYY too much

I love this video. I have to say it's not only like that with sports. This may not be entirely on-tangent with what you said, but e.g. the Polish Constitution states that elected diet members do not have any obligation to uphold the promises they made during their campaigns before elections. A rough translation of the article is "The deputies are representatives of the Nation. They are not bound by voters' instructions." So if they do not have an obligation then what's to stop them from promising a ton and then having 0 responsibility for anything that happens? it seems like the higher on the ladder the lesser the responsibility and even less accountability. So much is wrong with the world nowadays...

Can you pleeeeeeaaaaaase make a video about mtb

Great mention of snowboarding and FIS ... hits a really sore spot for me 🤕 Nevertheless great job with your videos, choice of words and keeping it neutral. Respect for being objective ✨️

The olimpics don't care about the sports in them, they just want the money.they will just put a bunch of nonsensical regulations that make sports drastically different than what they ARE. For example, around 2010 they threatened to take judo out of the olimpics because it "looked too similar to freestyle wrestling", so the international judo federation banned leg grabs in an effort to make judo more different than it already was. In the 2020 olimpics they made a dude loose in KARATE for KNOCKING OUT HIS OPONENT. While i am not very good at parkour and just started learning a bit to get to the bus faster, it sadens me that the fig has just taken over because they said so.

i have no fucking idea what this is about; how any outcome would affect anything other than peoples sentiment and by what legal/financial mechanism?

Like they say, Any News is Good News. There have been a few mainstream media takes on Parkour that weren't accurate, Hardcore Parkour for an example, but it introduced people to parkour. And once you find it, hopefully your town has a parkour community established, that you can join. And that community straitens you out about what parkour truly is. I feel as long as the spirt of parkour is alive in local communities then people like FIG can't hurt parkour, but will only help the real parkour emerge.

This is so simple... Parkour is not gymnastics and I don't see why FIG even entertains working with these 'so called' governing bodies of Parkour. Watching Parkour just has me screaming at every bad technique thing that I see. It's like, any idiot can do a standing back sommi, but to do one well, that takes training. Parkour isn't interested in technique, it's about just doing a gymnastic skill any crappy way that you can. It's gymnastics without the discipline. But, the sport of 'parkour' is going to have to work with the Olympic committee to get anywhere, I just don't see why FIG even care.

The 2 sports don't have that much in common. Parkour has some tumbling, but tumbling is also governed by the FIG (as well a trampoline). Parkour seems more of a culture than a sport, so why does it want to be in the Olympics (especially since it is a counter-culture)? There are plenty of sports not in the Olympics, so you'd think Parkour would be happy to have representation and an federation to promote it. It seems like a UK/France activity, so exposure in the Olympics may backfire. Nothing says countries can't do their own thing as well. Do Parkour people have a problem with the competition format, or is it just the idea that another sport controls it? Even if some Parkour organization represented it, if it became popular (like I assume they would want), it would get commercialized and turn into something the die-hard Parkour community didn't like anyway.

Mountain biker here. The UCI has been shafting us since day 1... Thankfully we are finally starting to see some breakaway competitions and events becoming more successful than uci events. (Thank god for ews) we just need the UCI out of DH racing now. They can keep xc if they want...

It would be awesome if they did parkour for 2024 Paris Olympics birth place of parkour

Maybe it's because Im a casual fan but I've always thought parkour shared a common ancestor with gymnastics. It always looked like the natural street progression to me. That being said I don't agree with fig or the idea that anyone but a parkour enthusiast should be governing.

So I am a gymnast and parkour doesn't even adhear to the principles of gymnastics. its just a completely different discipline. Parkour is more about risk and creativity and gymnastics is about the extremes of bio-mechanics. Parkour uses biomechanics but its not the point of it. Creativity is. Gym is solely about bi-mech evolution. Like physics and maths. Physics uses maths but its not about maths. This was a real C#$t move in my opinion. Just let them do their thing.

Skateboarding took like a whole 10 years to actually get into the olympics tho, just keep pushing for it.

Public money. There isn't massive amounts of tax money being poured into corner shops. There is when it comes to sports. Hence the central planners deciding how it's spent. Honestly the olympics have been coasting on public money for years. The events are often poorly attended and don't justify their budget. I'd love to see sports start to break away from the olympics and establish other mega-competitions. Imagine an alternative olympics with all the sports the olympics jilted? I have zero interest in synchronised swimming and hammer throwing, but I'd definitely pay for an event where I get to see chessboxing, parkour and jugger back to back.