Already, athletes from overseas have visited New Zealand, including the Fiji national team as part of its preparation for the Sofia event and Australian competitors.
“We are just building connections and bringing the communities together and creating opportunities for Kiwis to get onto the world stage - that’s the goal for it.”
There are hopes parkour will become an Olympic sport in the future - another motivation for New Zealand to host international competition.
“There’s a lot of things to learn, and hopefully, I will be learning a few more. In Bulgaria, I’ll sit down with [FIG president] Morinari Watanabe, who will be the highest-level gymnastics person I’ve ever met.”
The Sofia competition is part of a series of World Cup events, while the world championships are held in alternate years.
“The goal is, from the knowledge we get from this event, we will be able to pick a New Zealand team to make it to the world champs next year that will be in Zimbabwe, France or Japan.”
It would be the first time a New Zealand team has competed at the world championships.
“The time is right for New Zealand to be involved internationally. It’s just getting the knowledge across to the right communities. Getting to this point has been a rollercoaster, but we are now at a point where we have two international judges, and I’m one of them. The other is in Australia, but the knowledge is here, the coaching space is here and more gym clubs have jumped on board with it. Now it’s time to get that international event knowledge, and we’re away.”
Stephen started taking part in parkour when he was in his mid-teens.
“I’d always wanted to do gymnastics, but then when I saw a friend who’d started doing parkour, I thought, ‘That’s pretty much everything I want to do’. We just started jamming, and it just started to happen from there.”
He initially got involved in coaching both gymnastics and parkour at the North Shore YMCA, but will have been at Te Puke Gymsport for two years at the end of the year.
“I’ve been coaching gymnastics for close to 17 years, and parkour before that.”
He still competes recreationally.
“There is a slight inclination for me to want to go for the international stage, but we’ll see if the body can keep up - that’s the challenge.”
He says that while parkour seems like a high-risk sport, with the proper training, the risks are low.
“People who do parkour think twice before acting, and that’s where the safety side comes [in]. We are used to falling on to hard surfaces, and we know how to, and I think that’s how our risk is so low.
“The few times I’ve had injuries, it’s never been from parkour - it’s always been rugby or coaching. But it’s a really fast, exciting, growing sport, and it’s accessible to anyone.”
Te Puke Gymsport and Parkour general manager Erin McKenna says there has been a lot of growth in the numbers taking part in parkour at the centre.
“Over 100 kids come here every week to take part in parkour now, and it’s not getting any less. The good thing about it is, you teach them to do it outside, so they are not stuck to coming here. They can go out into the playground and do it there as well.”
Risk assessment and skill progression are important elements of the sport.
“The philosophy of parkour is to overcome obstacles, so we teach that, and there’s a community side to it too. We are seeing the older kids now going into coaching to pass on that knowledge they’ve learned, and that’s really cool to see evolving. We’ve got a few coaches that are also top athletes that want to make the jump to the international stage - so they’ve just come of age for next year. Let’s see if they are successful.”
Erin says young athletes are taught to think.
“They are given an obstacle to get through and they’ve got to figure out how to get through. It’s problem-solving, so the kids are learning that too.”
