Parkour Scoring for Speed, Skill and Style Events
Stopwatch Timing, Checkpoint Challenges and Style Panels
Parkour uses three scoring models. Speed is ranked on time: FIG timing measures to the thousandth and displays hundredths. Freestyle and Style are judged by a panel, at FIG events three execution judges and three difficulty judges, at USPK events three judges whose scores are averaged. Skill events set challenge stations and score the hardest level an athlete completes, using attempts to break ties.
- What JudgeMate Does for a Parkour Event
- How Parkour Competitions Are Run
- Parkour Competitions: One Sport, Three Ways to Win
- The Biggest Parkour Competitions
- Parkour Athletes Who Shaped the Sport
- Parkour Courses, Shoes and Timing
- Where Competitive Parkour Is Heading
- How Parkour Became a Competitive Sport
- Related Guides
- Parkour Competitions: Common Questions
What JudgeMate Does for a Parkour Event
Three Scoring Engines Under One Event
Speed, Skill and Style are separate category types, each with its own engine. You set the rules for each category and the server does the arithmetic. None of it implements a federation rulebook.
A stopwatch in the judge's phone
The time is captured the moment the finger touches the screen, not when it lifts. A running stopwatch survives a page reload, and judges can type a time, edit or void an attempt, or undo the last one within five seconds.
Courses, attempts and how times combine
Set up to ten courses with one to ten attempts each. A course result is the fastest, average or combined attempt, the final result is the fastest, average or combined course, and all three totals are always shown.
Timing precision and ties
Record to tenths, hundredths or thousandths; times are truncated, and the ranking uses the value on screen. A tie goes to the next best time, or the athletes share the place (1-1-3).
Skill challenges with checkpoints
Each challenge has a note for judges, an attempt limit or none, up to twelve checkpoints with points (added up, or highest reached), a completion bonus and a bonus by attempt number such as 3/2/1. The best attempt per challenge counts; ties go to more completed challenges, then fewer attempts.
A Style panel with your criteria
Style runs on the judge-scored engine: any number of judges, marks averaged, criteria and weights you define. The starting template has five components from 0 to 10, which you can replace with your rulebook's.
Attempts saved without signal
In Speed and Skill, an attempt recorded offline stays queued on the device, survives a reload and is sent when the connection returns. The queue holds entries for 72 hours.
Penalties and DSQ with a written reason
The organiser can add a time or point penalty, disqualify an athlete or set a tie-break order. Every adjustment needs a reason, so the result sheet can be explained after the event.
Results to PDF and CSV
Speed exports carry every course time plus fastest, average and combined. Skill exports carry the best score per challenge and the number of completed challenges.
How Parkour Competitions Are Run
The Formats Organisers Actually Run
Speed
A timed run from A to B over obstacles. At FIG events athletes race on two parallel lanes after a Take your mark, Set and a gun; the first false start in a heat puts both athletes on a yellow card, and the athlete who false-starts again is disqualified. Checkpoints can be passed in any order, and stepping outside the course boundary disqualifies the run. USPK scores the sum of an athlete's best times across the courses.
Freestyle (FIG)
A judged run of 20 to 45 seconds in a freestyle zone. Three execution judges score up to 15 points for safety, landing quality and flow; three difficulty judges score an open-ended difficulty mark from the FIG Table of Tricks. Finishing under 20 seconds costs two points, and after 45 seconds no further difficulty is credited.
Style (USPK and national events)
The judged discipline outside the FIG system. USPK uses a panel of three whose scores are averaged, with a line round (Composition 50, Difficulty 25, Execution 25) and a combo round of three linked techniques (Difficulty 50, Execution 50). Parkour Earth describes its Style judging as execution, difficulty, creativity, flow and obstacle interaction.
Skill
Challenge stations judged pass or fail. Under the USPK rulebook athletes score the highest level of difficulty they complete at each station, can earn an extra point for a flash, and have their attempts counted for a countback tie-break. Challenges cover jumps, precision landings, vaults, rolls, swings and climbs.
Rounds, Redo and finals
FIG competitions run qualifications, knockout semi-finals in Speed and finals, and every round starts from zero. In qualification an athlete may request a Redo straight after the first run; in Freestyle only the second run then counts. Large Speed fields send 16 athletes to the semi-finals and 10 to the final.
How Parkour Is Scored
A single parkour event can produce a time, a judges' score and a points total, and each needs different arithmetic. Speed rewards the lowest time, so ties, precision and what happens after a fall or a missed checkpoint matter more than any mark. Skill rewards completion, so the number of attempts is part of the result. Freestyle and Style depend on a panel, and on how much weight the rulebook gives to difficulty against execution and flow.
JudgeMate scores Speed and Skill on two dedicated engines and Style on its judge-scored engine with criteria you configure. It does not reproduce FIG's separate execution and difficulty panels, its Table of Tricks or its card system. In Style one panel scores every criterion. In Speed there are no cards: the timekeeper marks an attempt DNF or DSQ or adds a time penalty to it, and the organiser can penalise or disqualify an athlete with a written reason.
**Time (Speed)**: the run from start signal to finish, with every checkpoint passed. Faster is better; a missed checkpoint or a line violation voids the run.
**Completion (Skill)**: which checkpoints or difficulty levels of a challenge the athlete completed, and in which attempt. USPK recommends an extra point for completing a challenge on the first try.
**Difficulty**: how hard the movements and combinations are, and how much risk they carry. FIG builds it from trick values; USPK weights it at 25 of 100 points in a line round and 50 in a combo round.
**Execution**: control, precision, landings and body position. FIG's execution score covers safety, landing quality and flow.
**Flow**: continuity between movements, with no hesitation or reset between obstacles.
**Creativity**: originality of lines and movement choices, and how an athlete reads the course differently from the rest of the field.
**Use of Space**: how much of the course and its obstacles the run explores. Parkour Earth lists obstacle interaction among its Style criteria.
In Speed, each timekeeper uses a stopwatch in their own phone. The time is captured when the finger touches the screen, the running stopwatch survives a page reload, and the browser is asked to keep the screen on. A time can also be typed in, and an attempt can be edited, voided or undone within five seconds; a DNS button records a no-show. Attempts recorded in Speed or Skill without a connection wait in a queue on the device and are sent when the network returns, for up to 72 hours. In Style, judges score on their own devices and marks are averaged; with five or more judges the organiser can drop the highest and lowest total. Results export to PDF and CSV.
Parkour Competitions: One Sport, Three Ways to Win
Competitive parkour asks three different questions. Speed asks who gets from start to finish fastest, so the result is a time. Freestyle or Style asks who moves with the most difficulty, control and flow, so the result is a judges' score. Skill asks who can complete the hardest challenge, so the result is points for what was completed and how many attempts it took.
The international calendar splits along the same lines. FIG runs World Cups and World Championships in Speed and Freestyle. National bodies such as the United States Parkour Association (USPK), and Parkour Earth's 2026 World Championships, run Speed, Skill and Style side by side, often on the same weekend.
That is what makes a parkour event awkward to score on paper or in a spreadsheet: one judge is holding a stopwatch, another is ticking checkpoints on a challenge sheet, and a third group is averaging style marks. JudgeMate treats them as three category types with three separate scoring engines inside one event, so each result is calculated the way that contest is actually decided.
The Biggest Parkour Competitions
Two international calendars, one multi-sport games and a growing layer of national circuits underneath.
FIG Parkour World Championships
First held in Tokyo in October 2022, where Bohdan Kolmakov, Miranda Tibbling, Dimitrios Kyrsanidis and Ella Bucio took the four titles. The second edition in Kitakyushu in November 2024 was cut short by rain and ran senior and junior events together.
FIG Parkour World Cup
After test events in 2017, the first official series ran in Hiroshima and Montpellier in 2018, and Montpellier's FISE festival has hosted a World Cup ever since. The 2025 series ran in Amsterdam and Montpellier; in 2026 the World Cups went to Montpellier in May and Istanbul in June.
The World Games
Parkour debuted at Birmingham 2022 and returned at Chengdu 2025, where Caryl Cordt-Moller and Miranda Tibbling won Speed and Mutsuhiro Shiohata and Shang Chunsong won Freestyle.
Parkour Earth World Championships
Scheduled for Brno, Czech Republic, from 28 October 2026, in Speed, Skill and Style. Athletes qualify through national championships, including those in Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Switzerland, the USA and the UK.
USPK National Championships
The top of the US circuit, reached through regional qualifiers and regional finals. The 2026 Nationals at HUB Parkour Training Center qualified the top three per event for the SPL World Championships and the Parkour Earth World Championships.
SPL World Championships
The Sport Parkour League championship at Origins Parkour in Vancouver, grown from a North American Championship the same organisers have run for over a decade. SPL4 in August 2025 ran Skill, Speed and Style through prelims, semis and finals.
Red Bull Art of Motion
The long-running freerunning invitational, launched in Vienna in 2007 and best known for its Santorini editions. In 2022 on Astypalea, athletes were judged on difficulty, creativity, flow and execution across three filmed challenges.
Parkour Athletes Who Shaped the Sport
One of parkour's founders now presides over its FIG commission, and its first world champions were crowned only in 2022.
Pioneers and First World Champions
David Belle
France. Credited by FIG with developing the parkour concept in Lisses, from the principles of movement taught by his father, a Parisian firefighter. He also starred in the film District B13.
Sébastien Foucan
France. One of the original group in Lisses and the face of Jump London in 2003, the documentary that brought freerunning to British television. He describes himself as a pioneer of the discipline rather than its founder.
Charles Perrière
France. A founding member of the Yamakasi and co-writer of the 2001 film Yamakasi. The FIG Parkour Code of Points 2025–2028 lists him as president of the FIG Parkour Commission.
Dimitrios Kyrsanidis
Greece. A winner of Red Bull Art of Motion in Santorini and the first FIG world champion in men's Freestyle, scoring 26.0 in Tokyo in 2022.
Bohdan Kolmakov
Ukraine. The first FIG world champion in men's Speed, winning in Tokyo in 2022 in 25.25 seconds.
Winning Right Now
Caryl Cordt-Moller
Switzerland. 2024 world champion in Speed, winner of Speed at The World Games 2025 and of the 2025 World Cup series. FIG identified him as one of the masked runners at the Paris 2024 opening ceremony.
Miranda Tibbling
Sweden. 2022 world champion in women's Speed, bronze medallist in 2024 and winner of Speed at The World Games in both 2022 and 2025.
Ella Bucio
Mexico. Won the first women's Freestyle world title in 2022, then the Speed world title in 2024 with Freestyle silver at the same championships.
Elis Torhall
Sweden. 2024 world champion in men's Freestyle, and winner of the Istanbul World Cup in June 2026.
Shang Chunsong
China. 2024 world champion in women's Freestyle and Freestyle winner at The World Games 2025 in Chengdu.
Mutsuhiro Shiohata
Japan. Freestyle silver at the 2024 World Championships and Freestyle gold at The World Games 2025.
Audrey Johnson
USA. Won Speed silver at the 2024 World Championships, the first US medal at a Parkour World Championships, and added Freestyle bronze. Took Speed silver again at the 2026 Montpellier World Cup.
Parkour Courses, Shoes and Timing
Parkour needs very little personal kit. What decides an event is the course and how the time is taken.
The course
FIG sets a minimum field of play of 40 × 10 metres, asks for two identical parallel courses at World Championships, and has not yet published apparatus norms. The course is set up by the provider or organising committee under the oversight of the FIG technical delegate; the obstacles at the 2026 World Cups came from Brick in Montpellier and HELIX in Istanbul.
Shoes
FIG rules only require suitable sport or running shoes of the athlete's choice. The rules name no model, sole type or brand.
Clothing
T-shirts, polo shirts, sweaters, shorts, trousers or leggings, with nothing loose that could catch on an obstacle. Breaking the FIG dress code costs two seconds in Speed or two points in Freestyle.
Timing
FIG requires a timing installation that measures to the thousandth and displays hundredths, with manual backup to the tenth. USPK accepts a laser or video timer of at least 60 frames per second, or several stopwatches averaged.
Checkpoints and direction flags
Speed courses use checkpoints and flags to fix the route. USPK advises course setters to avoid artificial checkpoints that only require a tap.
Where Competitive Parkour Is Heading
Parkour is still settling who runs it and which formats count, and both questions are moving quickly.
Speed, Skill and Style as the common format
Outside the FIG system, the three-discipline model is spreading. USPK, the SPL World Championships, the 2026 Polish Championships and Parkour Earth's 2026 World Championships in Brno all run Speed, Skill and Style.
Two world championships
FIG and Parkour Earth now both hold world-level events, with national bodies aligned to one or both. For athletes this means two qualification paths; for organisers, two sets of rules to choose between.
Multi-sport exposure without the Olympics
With Paris 2024 inclusion declined, The World Games has become parkour's multi-sport stage, at Birmingham 2022 and Chengdu 2025.
Structured national circuits
USPK's 2027 calendar runs qualifiers from January to April, regional finals in May, junior, youth and teen nationals in June and adult nationals in July.
Asia joins the calendar
The first Asian Gymnastics Union Parkour Asian Championships took place in Amman, Jordan, in October 2025 under FIG rules.
Outdoor by default
FIG holds parkour outdoors unless an indoor venue is approved, and the weather shows. Rain cut the 2024 World Championships in Kitakyushu short, with some medals decided on earlier rounds.
How Parkour Became a Competitive Sport
Lisses and Évry (late 1980s–1990s)
Parkour started in the Paris suburbs of Lisses and Évry. FIG's own history credits David Belle with developing the concept from the principles of movement taught by his father, a Parisian firefighter. The name is usually traced to parcours du combattant, the military obstacle course.
A group of teenagers training together there became known as the Yamakasi. The group later split: Belle's side used the word parkour, while the Yamakasi kept the name L'Art du Déplacement. The 2001 film Yamakasi, co-written by founding member Charles Perrière, carried the movement to cinema audiences.
Freerunning Goes Global (2003–2010)
In 2003 Channel 4 broadcast Jump London, and Sébastien Foucan popularised the word freerunning with it. Freerunning came to mean a more expressive, acrobatic style of movement; parkour kept its focus on efficiency.
The first large competitions were invitationals. Red Bull Art of Motion launched in Vienna in 2007 and later moved to Santorini, with a panel judging each freerunner's run.
FIG Takes Parkour On (2017–2022)
In February 2017 the FIG Executive Committee gave the green light to develop parkour, with test events in Montpellier and Chengdu that year. The first FIG Parkour World Cup followed in Hiroshima in April 2018, and the FIG Congress in Baku ratified parkour as a discipline in its statutes in December 2018.
The first World Championships, planned for Hiroshima, were postponed twice during the pandemic. They finally took place in Tokyo in October 2022, with 97 athletes from 38 nations entered in Speed and Freestyle. Parkour also debuted at The World Games in Birmingham that year.
Two International Structures (2017–Present)
FIG's move was contested. Parkour Earth, founded in 2017 by six national parkour organisations, describes itself as the international federation for parkour, freerunning and Art du Déplacement, and told FIG in an open letter that the community should govern its own sport. FIG replied that it had never intended to appropriate a discipline unilaterally.
Both structures now run world-level events. National bodies sit on either side or both: USPK, founded in 2018 and describing itself as the national governing body in the USA, is a Parkour Earth affiliate, while USA Gymnastics fields the US team at FIG events.
Related Guides
Parkour Competitions: Common Questions
Sources
- Parkour Code of Points 2025–2028 — Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
- Technical Regulations 2025, Section 7: Special Regulations for Parkour — Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
- USPK Parkour Competition Rulebook v2.0 — United States Parkour Association
- Parkour history — Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
- Parkour Earth World Championships 2026 — Parkour Earth
Run Your Parkour Event on JudgeMate
Set up Speed, Skill and Style as categories of one event and send your judges a link.
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