Tuesday, July 31, 2018

parkour vs. Légion: la revanche!

You remember the video about the parkourist who went up against the Legionnaire on the military obstacle course (le parcours du combattant)? Well, here's the video showing a sort of rematch (la revanche = "the revenge" or "the rematch"). Clément Dumais, the parkourist from the previous video, returns this time with fellow traceur Rémi Girard. No longer facing off against Major Gérald, the two civilians instead find themselves competing against two much younger soldiers, "le première classe Vadim et le Caporal Som."

As before, the advantage definitely goes to the Legionnaires, who are intimately familiar with the two obstacle courses. This time around, though, the two civilians are given three days' training, which also includes a wilderness-survival component that teaches various skills, such as how to sleep above the ground and away from biting ants and poisonous snakes. All in all, this video is more intense than the previous one, and you feel for all four competitors, military and civilian. Enjoy.


Oh, and I just saw another "rematch" video, this time taking place in an urban setting, i.e., on the parkourists' home ground. I haven't watched this video yet, but you can be sure that I will:


And this is a bit off-topic, but a huge Semper fi! to the US Marines. Way to go.

ADDENDUM: here's a spoiler for the urban-parkour video: even though, in this video, the Legionnaires actually pair up with parkourists, it's possible to do the math and figure out how well each individual did for his 200-meter stretch of the obstacle course.

Here's how it breaks down:

Corporal Bulatonic: 1:20.48
Sergeant Chief Nicolas: 1:33.66
Legionnaires' total: 174.14 seconds (2:54.14)

Clément Dumais: 1:19.49
Paul "RdB": 1:59.58
Civilians' total: 199.07 seconds (3:19.07)

So: if the Legionnaires had been paired together, they would have won! Pretty badass.



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