How Is Parkour Scored?
Times in Speed, judges' marks in Freestyle and Style, completed challenges in Skill
Parkour is scored three ways. In Speed the fastest time wins; FIG timing measures to the thousandth and displays hundredths. In FIG Freestyle, three execution judges award up to 15 points and three difficulty judges add an open-ended difficulty score for a run of 20 to 45 seconds. USPK Style averages three judges over a 100-point sheet, and Skill scores the hardest challenge level an athlete completes, with attempts breaking ties.
Why Does Parkour Have More Than One Scoring System?
Parkour competitions measure different things, so they cannot share one number. Speed measures efficiency from A to B and produces a time. Freestyle (FIG) and Style (USPK and national events) measure the quality of a run and produce a judges' score. Skill measures whether an athlete can complete a set challenge and produces points.
FIG, which added parkour to its statutes in 2018, runs World Cups and World Championships in Speed and Freestyle only. The United States Parkour Association (USPK) runs Speed, Skill and Style, and so do Parkour Earth's 2026 World Championships in Brno.
| Discipline | Result | Decided by | Tie-break |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed (FIG) | Time | Timing system | Thousandths, otherwise shared |
| Freestyle (FIG) | E + D points | 3 E judges, 3 D judges | Higher E, then average E, then average D |
| Speed (USPK) | Sum of best course times | Laser, video or averaged stopwatches | Rulebook-defined |
| Style (USPK) | Average of 3 judges, out of 100 | Judging panel | Rulebook-defined |
| Skill (USPK) | Hardest level completed per station | Pass/fail judges | Attempt countback |
How Is a Parkour Speed Run Timed and Ranked?
A FIG Speed run is a race over obstacles on two parallel lanes. The starter calls Take your mark and Set, and timing begins with the gun or signal. Checkpoints may be passed in any order, but every checkpoint must be passed correctly before the finish, and any part of the body outside the course boundary disqualifies the run.
FIG timing must measure to 1/1000 of a second and display hundredths, rounded in the athlete's favour: a run of 20.245 is shown as 20.24. If the system fails, judges time by hand to at least a tenth of a second.
False starts are handled with cards. The first false start in a heat gives both athletes a yellow card; an athlete who false-starts again while on a yellow is disqualified. An athlete who arrives at the start line more than 30 seconds after being called is disqualified from that run.
Qualification ends after the second run: an athlete can request a Redo immediately after run one. Knockout semi-finals depend on field size. With 20 or more athletes, the 16 fastest go to the semi-finals and 10 reach the final, which is run in pairs but ranked on time. Ties are broken by the thousandths digit; if that is equal, the tie stands.
USPK Speed works differently. Athletes run two attempts on one course or one attempt on each of two courses, and the result is the sum of each athlete's best time on the given courses, to at least 0.01 seconds. Timing can be a laser or video timer of at least 60 frames per second, or several stopwatches averaged. An unfinished course is a DNF.
Score it automatically.
Judges' scores and the live ranking — without spreadsheets.
How Do FIG Judges Score a Freestyle Run?
A FIG Freestyle run lasts at least 20 and at most 45 seconds. Timing starts with the athlete's first step, jump or swing, a signal sounds at 40 seconds, and the athlete ends the run with arms crossed. Finishing under 20 seconds costs 2 points; anything done after 45 seconds can still draw execution deductions but earns no difficulty.
The panel is six judges: three for Execution and three for Difficulty. The Execution score is worth up to 15 points and covers safety, landing quality, flow and flow quality. The Difficulty score is open-ended (15+): it is built from trick values in the FIG Table of Tricks, which groups movements into swing, wall, acrobatics and parkour basics, and repeated tricks do not count.
The final score is Execution plus Difficulty minus deductions. In qualification an athlete may take a Redo, and then only the second run counts. The eight best qualifiers reach the final, with a maximum of two per federation, and the best qualifier runs last.
Ties in Freestyle are broken in three steps: the higher Execution score, then the average of all Execution judges' marks, then the average of all Difficulty judges' marks. Breaking the dress code costs 2 points in Freestyle and 2 seconds in Speed.
How Is Style Judged at USPK and National Events?
USPK Style is judged by three judges, and the final score is the average of their scores. The rulebook uses two rounds with different score sheets, both out of 100 points.
| Round | What the athlete does | Composition | Difficulty | Execution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Line | A run of roughly 10–30 seconds | 50 | 25 | 25 |
| Combo | Three linked techniques | none | 50 | 50 |
The weighting tells athletes what each round is for. A line round gives half the score to composition, the way the run is put together. A combo round drops composition and splits the score evenly between how hard the three techniques are and how well they are executed.
Other Style events publish their own criteria. Parkour Earth describes its 2026 World Championships Style judging as execution, difficulty, creativity, flow and obstacle interaction. The rules for the 2026 Polish Championships in Płock list creativity, fluidity of movement, precision of execution and overall impression.
How Does a Parkour Skill Challenge Score Work?
Skill is scored at challenge stations, and every attempt is judged pass or fail. Under the USPK rulebook an athlete scores the highest level of difficulty they complete at each station, so each station is built with several levels of difficulty.
The rulebook recommends one extra point for a flash, meaning success on the first attempt, and tracks the number of attempts so that ties can be broken by countback. Stations cover jumps, landings including the precision stick landing, vaults, rolls, swings and climbs.
Because every station adds to the total, an athlete who completes every station at a medium level can beat one who reaches the top level on a single station and fails the rest.
The same format appears well beyond the US. The SPL World Championships in Vancouver, the 2026 Polish Championships and Parkour Earth's 2026 World Championships all include a Skill event built on technical challenges.
Worked Example: A Speed Time, a Style Score and a Skill Total
Speed, USPK method. An athlete runs one attempt on each of two courses: 31.47 and 28.93. The result is the sum of the best time on each course: 31.47 + 28.93 = 60.40. A second athlete runs 30.88 and 29.52, also 60.40. The tie is then settled by the rulebook's own tie-break rules, not by the timing.
Speed, FIG method. Two athletes finish a final in 27.70 on the display. The timing system has recorded 27.702 and 27.708, so the thousandths digit separates them and the first athlete ranks higher. Had both read 27.702, they would share the place.
Style, USPK line round. Three judges score a run:
- Judge 1: Composition 38 + Difficulty 19 + Execution 20 = 77
- Judge 2: Composition 41 + Difficulty 18 + Execution 21 = 80
- Judge 3: Composition 36 + Difficulty 20 + Execution 19 = 75
Style score = (77 + 80 + 75) ÷ 3 = 77.33.
Skill. A station offers three levels of the same precision jump. The athlete completes level 2 on the first attempt at the station, then fails level 3 twice. Under the USPK approach the station scores 2 points for the highest completed level, plus a recommended 1 point for the flash, for 3.
Running these in JudgeMate. Speed maps onto a category with fastest attempt per course and courses combined, recorded to hundredths or thousandths, with ties set to next best time or shared places. The Style sheet becomes three criteria scored 0–50, 0–25 and 0–25, added up per judge and averaged across the panel. A Skill station becomes a challenge whose checkpoints are the levels, scored by the highest checkpoint reached. JudgeMate's attempt bonus only applies when the whole challenge is completed, so a flash on a lower level is not added automatically. JudgeMate does not implement FIG's separate Execution and Difficulty panels or the Table of Tricks. See parkour on JudgeMate for what each engine does.
Judging by hand? Let the system do the math.
JudgeMate adds up every judge's score live. The classification updates itself and athletes follow it from their phones.
Common Questions About Parkour Scoring
Sources
- Parkour Code of Points 2025–2028 — Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
- Technical Regulations 2025 — Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
- USPK Parkour Competition Rulebook v2.0 — United States Parkour Association
- 1st FIG Parkour World Championships, Tokyo 2022: results — Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
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