One Giant Leap: Freerunning Joins Sport Establishment

Five years ago, outside Liverpool Street station in London, a group of 13 young men gathered for what was, at the time, the biggest meeting of free runners in history. The sport, in which participants perform balletic leaps and flips using walls, bars and any other street furniture available, was still in its earliest infancy, mushrooming spontaneously across Britain among young people who had seen films of the French urban sport parkour and wanted to adapt it into a freer and more expressive form.

How times change. Last night, the once underground pursuit declared itself firmly in the sporting establishment by holding its first world championships, hosted in one of London's top venues, sponsored by a major credit card company, and filmed by Sky Sports.

"I never, ever thought we'd get to this place so quickly," said John Kerr, or "Kerbie", one of the event's organizers. Present at that inaugural gathering at Liverpool Street, he finds himself, at 21, one of the sport's elder statesmen.

"We all feel amazingly blessed. Free running is so young and so new. A few years ago we were getting chased by police on a regular basis and property owners would shout at us. Now they pay us to come and perform on their properties."

Fifty feet above him, one of the event's 23 competitors was warming up by balancing in a handstand on the edge of an enormous black box, part of the equipment on which he would later compete, before flipping on to a nearby bar, spinning around it, and dismounting. Below him, his peers - those not already performing "gainers" and "loser flips" and "layout backflips" from a lattice of steel poles - murmured approvingly. The sport might be said to combine the best qualities of gymnastics, cat burglary and teenage mucking about, but the skill of the participants is unarguable.

Few underground activities can claim to have made it into the mainstream with such dazzling speed. Many participants trace the birth of free running to a BBC "ident" in 2002, showing a parkour runner adapting his skills on the rooftops of London.

Urban Free flow, the sport's central organization, was founded a year later. Though closely related to parkour, which originated in the Paris suburbs a decade ago, that pursuit prizes speed and efficiency of movement, in contrast to the expressiveness of free runners. As such, though it is practiced worldwide - last night's competitors hailed from 17 countries - free running could reasonably be described as a brand new British sport.

Urban Freeflow now trains the Metropolitan police and Royal Marines, as well as organizing workshops in schools, and estimates that 15,000 people now practice the sport in Britain (95% are male).

The organization choreographed action sequences for the films Casino Royale, the Bourne Ultimatum and 28 Weeks Later, and performs at civic events - an outlet so lucrative that it is able to support 30 professional athletes.

As the founder of Urban Free flow and the organizer of last night's competition, Paul "EZ" Corkery could be considered the grandfather of free running - at 34, he considers himself retired. He is in discussions with the 2012 Olympic organizers over how free running might be involved, perhaps in the opening ceremonies, or in workshops.

"The organizers are really eager to collaborate with anything that gets the kids off their arses," he said. Does he see a day when free running might be an Olympic sport? "I don't really think it fits. You'd need to put in place a national governing body, things like that, and it would kill the sport, really."

While there was no doubting the competitors' eagerness to excel yesterday, free runners may also have something to learn about Olympic competitiveness. The world champion was to be selected by a vote among his peers. Was there any risk of tactical voting?

"Oh no. These guys are my YouTube idols, it means everything to be here with them," said Franck "Cali" Nelle, from France. How badly did he want to win? "I'm not really thinking about the podium. It's just being here alongside the best of the best. The first ever free running world championships? That's a big event. That's history books."