Miranda Tibbling, a traceur born in 2004, started Parkour in 2015 and today is one of the best performer of the discipline.
She already has many medals on her palmares: a gold in Speed and a silver in Freestyle at the 2022 World Games. She’s also the current world champion in Speed and she collected other podium in the 2021, 2022, and 2023 World Cups in Montpellier and Sofia.
Tibbling wants to inspire people, especially girls who think Parkour is only for boys.
You once said that you started parkour because you saw some guys doing it. When did your curiosity become a strong passion?
I think I really started to love the sport and my passion grew a lot in 2018. Then I got injured in 2019 so that year and 2022 was a special one for me. But after the injury I started lifting weights, doing more stretching and took my training more seriously.
In the beginning, you were the only girl in your town practising Parkour. Was this a problem for you or for other people? Were you targeted in any way/bullied for this?
I wasn’t bullied at all for being the only girl my friends/ the people I met were really nice. But some other people that were close to me didn’t really believe in me and took the sports seriously. But I didn’t really care about it that much.
I think I didn’t notice it much in the begging but later on and still today people still don’t see parkour as a real sport and respect the sport. And comments like “that’s good for being a girl” are something that I feel like people need to stop saying.
In your social media you always talk about the ‘normality’ of different bodies. Why do you think the representation of different bodies is important in sport?
I think it’s very important to talk about body difference and body positivity. The sport world and social media can be very toxic and sometimes only show one specific body type. Or that you need to be small and thin or blond too succeed.
I want to show that there isn’t one perfect body type for parkour. It’s for everyone. Your size shouldn’t matter at all.
In your experience as a coach, have you met or do you meet many girls? In your country, is the difference between boys and girls practising Parkour big? Are the new generations of traceurs equally distributed between the two genders?
I have met some girls when I’ve been coaching but most of them are pretty young and not in my age. I’m the only girl that compete and train professionally in Sweden so yes it’s a big gap.
But I think there are more and more people and girls that are starting to join the sport and training. And it’s getting better and hopefully girls and boys will have the same opportunities in parkour in the future.
In Italy there is still a lot of prejudice against Parkour, as it is viewed as a dangerous sport made up of people jumping between buildings. Is this also the case in your country?
People see parkour as dangerous here too. And some people can get very angry when we train. They feel like we are destroying their stuff and making too much noise.
One last question, about your health. Has your knee completely healed from the injury?
Yes it is fully recovered, although I don’t think it will ever be 110% again. But it is much better and the recovery went well. The mental part is harder, but overall I’m fine!
