New Parkour and Aggressive Skating leagues launched in China

The CHINESE Extreme Sports Association has launched two new national League competitions, namely the Parkour League and Aggressive Skating League.

The CHINESE Parkour League will hold five events across the country from May to October. They include a speed race, skills challenge and a pursuit race, which will be held at each stop with a prize purse of nearly 75,000 US dollars up for grabs.

The Aggressive Skating League is scheduled to hold eight events in a span of six months with similarprize money on offer. Officials from the CESA said the very first CHINESE Extreme Sports Games will be staged in Henan Province in July.

Parkour, a training discipline using movement that developed from military obstacle course training, was developed in France, primarily by Raymond Belle, and subsequently, by his son David and his friend.

Disciplines include running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, rolling and quadrupedal movement like crawling.

On the other hand, aggressive skating, also known as rollerblading, blading, skating or rolling, is a sub-discipline of inline skating primarily focused on the execution of tricks.

It was started in 1980when a group of ice hockey players in Minnesota, U.S., were looking for a way to practice during the summer.