Parkour World Championships
Speed and freestyle titles on the world stage. The FIG Parkour World Championships began in Tokyo in 2022. The events, the champions so far and the debate over who should run the sport.
A 2022 world champion: FIG, CC BY-SA 4.0
A sport with a scoreboard
For most of its history parkour was a training practice, not a competition. That changed when the International Gymnastics Federation, known as FIG, added parkour as one of its disciplines. World Cup events followed from 2018, held together with the FISE extreme sports festival, and a first World Championships was planned for Hiroshima in April 2020.
The pandemic postponed those plans. The first FIG Parkour World Championships finally took place from 14 to 16 October 2022 at Ariake Urban Sports Park in Tokyo.
The first champions
In Tokyo, the speed titles went to Bohdan Kolmakov for men and Miranda Tibbling of Sweden for women. Freestyle gold went to Dimitris Kyrsanidis of Greece and Ella Bucio of Mexico.
The second edition was held from 15 to 17 November 2024 in Kitakyushu, Japan. Bad weather forced organisers to cut some final rounds and use earlier results. Caryl Cordt-Moller of Switzerland won men's speed, Elis Torhall of Sweden won men's freestyle, Ella Bucio won women's speed and Shang Chunsong of China won women's freestyle.
Who runs parkour?
Not everyone welcomed a gymnastics body taking charge. Many in the parkour community argued that the sport should govern itself, and in 2017 national parkour bodies formed Parkour Earth as an alternative international federation. Parkour Earth announced its own world championship for 2026, and an independent series has also run world championships in Vancouver.
The debate is about identity as much as rules: is parkour a sport, an art or a way of training? Fans can enjoy the competitions while respecting the community's mixed feelings.
Elite athletes, elite preparation
World championship athletes train for years with coaches, warm up carefully and compete on courses designed and checked by organisers. What looks effortless is the product of thousands of hours of progressions.
Everything on this page is performed by trained professionals. Please do not try to copy it. If parkour inspires you, start at a proper parkour gym with qualified coaches.
How to follow the sport
Results, schedules and replays are usually published by the organising federations and national parkour bodies. Many events are streamed online, and highlight clips show the best runs from each round.
Watching full competitions is a good way to appreciate how much control the athletes have. You will notice the careful course inspections, the warm-ups and the many runs where athletes choose a safer line rather than gamble on a risky one.
- A 2022 world champion: FIG, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Ariake Urban Sports Park: Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 de
- World Cup podium, 2019: Mileva Marike, CC BY-SA 4.0
Text written by Legendary Awesome.
