Freerunning
What's the difference between freerunning and parkour?
Red Bull Art of Motion sport director Nico Wlcek finally clears up the question that we needed answered.
Freerunning or parkour? Parkour or freerunning? What's the difference, if indeed there is one?
Both disciplines have really taken off in the last two decades, with viral videos of athletes leaping off buildings, scaling great heights and even making a last-minute dash to catch a flight at Munich Airport.
For an untrained eye, they may look identical, but there are, in fact, subtle differences. Red Bull Art of Motion sport director Nico Wlcek is perfectly placed to explore them, having helped launch the career of a number of athletes, while working on the competition for the last nine years.
Ahead of the 2019 event switching location from Santorini to the picturesque southern Italian city of Matera on October 5, Wleck took some time out to clear up the mystery:
Parkour originally started out as a form of military training. Has it gone beyond that now?
It's gone beyond that in many ways. The military still has interest in it. There are a lot of workshops given to special forces or to the police all around the world. But parkour has become a sport, a culture, and an art form. The name parkour has caught up in our society so much that people think parkour is freerunning and vice versa.
Red Bull Art Of Motion 2019 takes place in Italy
© Mauro Puccini/Red Bull Content Pool
How did freerunning come into the mix then?
When I researched about the origin of our sports and how David Belle helped develop parkour, it used to be that parkour was an efficient way of getting from point A to point B. More about speed and efficiency. Running and jumping and getting over things. As parkour developed, it developed very strictly into one direction which naturally forced it to develop in another direction. This is why Sébastien Foucan decided to give it more of an international name and called it freerunning. He allowed it to have more space in the direction of creativity. All movement was encouraged. Flips were suddenly part of the game and soon those athletes added twists to them. Tricks that had never been done before were suddenly on everybody's mind. That creativity is what we see in Art of Motion - that's what freerunning is about.
Do you think freerunning and parkour are still different enough in style to be separated?
Five years ago they were, but now everything has melded together again. People say parkour to all of it. Snowboarding doesn't get two names whether you are riding down a mountain or doing tricks in a snowboard park, it's still the same sport. I personally would love to see parkour and freerunning meld together again. I think it should have never been split up. What that name is going to be? I don't know, but it's important that we as a culture are represented under one name.
Dominic Di Tommaso in Matera
© Mauro Puccini/Red Bull Content Pool
Is freerunning a more supple, spiritual discipline?
Spiritual is a hard word for me. When I look at parkour athletes I see spirituality in a different sense. The highest level of them, who have thousands and thousands of hours of training, are doing things on roofs where they put themselves in life or death situations and that's very spiritual for me. Not because they're risking their life, but because they know exactly what they're capable of, but then again so do freerunners. I think the difference lies more in the style of movement. Tricks, movement and creativity are a very big part of freerunning compared to parkour, where the focus is more on efficiency, speed and technique. Freerunning is a free-flowing art because it's more about the connection in-between things. It's not only about the distance or time, but how you look and feel in the air. That's a big difference.
What are you looking forward to at Red Bull Art of Motion this year?
We took a break and it's coming back with a new location, a new track and a change in format. We've decided to go with six spots for the women. It'll be two men’s heats and one women’s heat. This means it's going to be a mixed final. We believe the women can compete with the men and I'm excited to see it! It's a step towards the future. I have seen 14 and 15-year-old girls, who are throwing down some gnarly moves and I can’t wait for them to be old enough to compete. The roster of athletes has changed drastically. The cool thing is that it's very international now. We have people from Japan, Morocco, Thailand and Russia. So much new talent that can definitely take on the big players in our sport. It's going to be a hell of a show!