Imax: London's most popular parkour spot
Lilly Pennings
London baby, the home of dope street art, alternative underground music and the place where edgy and cool collide in a melting pot of creativity and individuality. Free runners, the daredevils of this urban jungle, can’t be missed. London is a treasure trove for the parkour discipline as many parkour parks are waiting to be conquered. Imax is one of those spots. It’s the most popular park for freerunning and can be found in the heart of London. In this blog, we’ll tell you about all the ins and outs of this unique parkour spot.
Imax: Concrete playground for freerunners
You can recognize Imax by its dope architecture. It’s a staircase system that runs under the roads of a busy intersection. This parkour spot consists of two parts. The most legendary in the world of parkour is Imax 1, which you can see in the photo above. Imax 2 is a bit more simple as the spot consists of two walls. What makes this part challenging is that there is a drop of about 3 meters high between the walls. Imax is located in the center of London, close to Waterloo's underground station.
Evolution of Imax London parkour spot: upgrading the parkour discipline
Just like the sickest roof gap ever, the Manpower gap, this parkour park has continuously been upgraded to the next level throughout the years. Many parkour challenges can be upgraded at this park because of its many jump levels. One of the first jumps attempted at Imax was the kong pre between the two walls on the right-hand side which can be seen in the photo below. This was just the beginning. Soon an array of vault precisions, kong variations, and even flip precisions were added to the mix. And that’s not all, It’s the same story for Imax 2. Other parts of Imax were quickly discovered and parkour challenges were upgraded as well.
Imax world firsts: from backflip and frontflip to sideflip
Imax is the ultimate concrete playground for fearless freerunners and it’s no surprise that countless world firsts have been achieved here..We’re not going to name all of them because ain’t nobody got time for that but we handpicked the most jawdropping achievements for you.
English free runner Joseph Marx has a laundry list of world firsts to his name, including the backflip pre and standing side flip pre between the two walls of the wheelchair entrance. He also did the first-ever kong playo and tic tac pre over the massive gap. In 2010 Paulo Tevaro made history by landing the iconic jump at Imax 1 while Jayden Clark nailed the first-ever frontflip over the daunting gap. Another parkour legend is Cai Willis as he became the first to side-flip the gap. This wasn’t his first big achievement as a free runner. He also holds the world first for the kong pre from the highest to the middle wall, a feat that Arthur from Team Phat was the first to stick. Just when you thought the Imax gap couldn’t get more insane, it was upgraded in 2022 with a kong front pre and a mind-blowing 360 pre. So who do you think will be the next to add another world first in Imax’s history book? Who knows, the new title could be yours... Want to find out more about London’s most popular parkour park? Visit this spot via CityLegends or check out this video of Jimmy de Giant.