Physical: Asia’s Dominic Di Tommaso believes Singapore could stand out in the Netflix reality series

SINGAPORE – Flashy and gravity-defying parkour stunts that go viral and garner the most likes online are mostly performed by courageous young people.

But clips of seniors in Singapore performing parkour moves have bucked the trend, with the videos gaining traction on the internet, and even attracted widespread attention from news publications worldwide.

Viewers’ interest was piqued by these geriatric parkour sessions, part of a growing fitness trend in Singapore where older adults learn movements like crawling, balancing, vaulting, and falling safely to improve their strength and prevent injuries.

The craze even earned the endorsement of Dominic Di Tommaso, a renowned free-runner and parkour athlete who competed with Team Australia in Netflix’s reality series Physical: Asia.

“I really adore the direction that’s been taken with geriatric or elderly people learning to use parkour skills, whether it’s safety in falling or just overcoming obstacles,” said Di Tommaso, who is better known as Dom Tomato to fans.

“That aspect is something that’s less spoken about and is really important – it can extend and save lives.

“That’s something that’s always stood out about the Singapore parkour scene – it’s not only core, fundamental, traditional parkour if you will, now they have this growing cultivation that gives it more reach within the population.”

The Australian was speaking with The Straits Times during a visit to Singapore in August for a free-running project by Red Bull.

In a first, Di Tommaso, Dutch free-runner Noa Diorgina, and some of South-east Asia’s elite parkour athletes participated in a high-altitude capture-the-flag race across Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) attractions, including the Singapore Oceanarium and Universal Studios Singapore.

On getting to do parkour at RWS, he said: “Coming to Resorts World is unbelievable. When I first came here, I was super entranced by the architecture.

“As a parkour athlete, we always look at architecture as quite a unique thing and because it’s quite a modern design with really grand structures, I was really excited to come and potentially have access to the rooftops and things you normally wouldn’t get to see.”

While intrigued by the non-conventional seniors form of parkour in Singapore, the 34-year-old believes that the country’s parkour athletes have what it takes to excel in a competition like Physical: Asia despite its small population.

He cited the Mongolian team, who earned the admiration of viewers for their efforts as they finished runners-up to winners South Korea.

Mongolia has a population of about 3.5 million people, over 2 million fewer than Singapore’s 6.11 million.

He said: “We saw that with Team Mongolia. They have a population of 3.5 million people and they were by far and large one of the most impactful teams on the show.

“I really think if Singapore were to have their hat thrown in the ring for Physical: Asia, there’s a very high chance that the top athletes from Singapore could make an impact and stand out in the competition.”

With Physical: Asia’s success, Di Tommaso hopes to see more variations of the reality competition series that involve different countries around the world.

He said: “I would love to see Physical: Asia, maybe another one with other countries mixed in to see how they would perform against each other.

“The team aspect is more thrilling to me rather than the Physical 100 aspect, having that nationalistic energy behind it where people can support their countries like the Olympics.”

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Kimberly Kwek joined The Straits Times in 2019 as a sports journalist and has since covered a wide array of sports, including golf and sailing.