Parkour

General Rules

According to the World Freerunning Parkour Federation (WFPF), rules of parkour are as follows -

• Two athletes run at a time unless it is not possible due to uneven numbers of participants.
• The male athletes run the course in two directions, while female athletes will run the course in one direction.
• No second run is permitted in the finals.
• If an athlete steps over the boundary lines for their lane, they will be disqualified for that individual race.
• Time is measured with a timekeeping system measuring in 1/1000th of a second.
• The players are awarded penalty marks if they break or mark things, they shouldn’t leave trash around.
• Players are required to stay away from sensitive areas such as churches, memorials, police stations. This is more a sign of respect than anything else.

History of Parkour

The sport was initially known as Art du Deplacement; now it is referred to as Parkour or freerunning. It was founded in France in the 1980s by a group of nine young men. The founders are David Belle, Yann Hnautra, Chau Belle, Laurent Piemontesi, Sebastien Foucan, Guylain N’Guba Boyeke, Charles Perriere, Malik Diouf and Williams Belle. 

In 1998, the term parkour was first coined by David Belle. Parkour derives from the French word Parcours which means ‘route’ or ‘course’ whereas Guillaume Pelletier coined the term freerunning. Later in 2003, a French group practitioner representative involved in the production of a Channel 4 - documentary, Jump London.

Parkour was believed to be developed from the physical education and training methods that emerged before World War I by Georges Hebert. 

In the late 1990s, the Yamakas group of people practised Parkour on their own, adding more challenges and movements, and soon started giving public performances. With these advents, Parkour began to spread globally. The international organizations the World Free Running Parkour Federation was founded in the year 2008. 

In 2009, MTV’s ULTIMATE PARKOUR CHALLENGE premiered on MTV channel. The WFPF partnered with MTV to develop and produce this one-hour competitive format. It consisted of WFPF member athletes such as Daniel Ilabaca, Ryan Doyle, Tim Shieff etc. In June 2018, WFPF launched the World Parkour Championship #WPC series holding their first event in Mardin, Turkey.