At the Big Wall Open, parkour lands in new, physicalterritory
In the city of Brighton, on the south coast of England, is a very big wall.
Constructed in the early 19th century to stabilise a 20 metre-tall cliff face, the wall has been the backdrop to a lot of movement. Peering over its sea-green railings in 1905, spectators watched Clifford Earp screech out a win in the first edition of the world’s oldest running motor race, the Brighton Speed Trials. On a Whitsun weekend in 1964, the wall was witness to the famous fists-and-deckchairs Battle for Madeira Drive fought between two ‘60s youth subcultures, the Mods and Rockers, and immortalised in The Who’s 1973 rock opera, “Quadrophenia”. The road is home to the finishing lines for marathons and cycle races, for which spectators line the top of the wall and its colonnade of cast-iron arches in one long linear stadium. On September 18th, 2022, though, as leading parkour athletes gathered from across the world to dash, dive, and scramble across it, the wall was no longer just the backdrop to events: it was the arena itself …
In the city of Brighton, on the south coast of England, is a very big wall.
Constructed in the early 19th century to stabilise a 20 metre-tall cliff face, the wall has been the backdrop to a lot of movement. Peering over its sea-green railings in 1905, spectators watched Clifford Earp screech out a win in the first edition of the world’s oldest running motor race, the Brighton Speed Trials. On a Whitsun weekend in 1964, the wall was witness to the famous fists-and-deckchairs Battle for Madeira Drive fought between two ‘60s youth subcultures, the Mods and Rockers, and immortalised in The Who’s 1973 rock opera, “Quadrophenia”. The road is home to the finishing lines for marathons and cycle races, for which spectators line the top of the wall and its colonnade of cast-iron arches in one long linear stadium. On September 18th, 2022, though, as leading parkour athletes gathered from across the world to dash, dive, and scramble across it, the wall was no longer just the backdrop to events: it was the arena itself …
