The proposal by Watanabe, who became an International Olympic Committee member in 2018 and, last year, successfully chaired the IOC’s Boxing Task Force charged with supervising competition at the postponed Tokyo 2020 Games, was eagerly embraced by the 2018 FIG Congress.

Watanabe wanted to create a new "community" within gymnastics by annexing a practice that some regard as sport but others regard as akin to a philosophy.

Parkour derives from the French phrase parcours du combattant and has been developed from techniques imparted to military personnel in order to help them get from one point to another in difficult terrain without using equipment.

A working definition of the discipline, also known as freerunning or obstacle course racing, describes "seeing one's environment in a new way and imagining the potential for navigating it by movement around, across, through, over and under its features."

It was showcased as an exhibition event during the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer.

Thereafter, FIG launched plans to incorporate a competitive version within the governing body and in May 2017 they proposed parkour for Tokyo 2020 inclusion.

Parkour Earth, the group set up to represent an activity that is particularly hard to summarise, urged members of the IOC at that point to reject adding the sport to the Tokyo Games, describing FIG's action as a "hostile takeover".

The group's then chief executive Eugene Minogue had been very clear about his views since the initial FIG move.

"They are completely whitewashing our sport, its integrity, its history, its lineage, its authenticity," he said at the time. "They want to codify it, they want to monetise it. It's about money, about influence, about power, about control. It's about having a seat at the table."

Minogue maintained that the discipline had "no connection to nor lineage from gymnastics" and noted with regret that the IOC has previously allowed older, established sports bodies to take over new events.

After he left his role in 2019 Parkour Earth maintained a similar stance while protesting against parkour's proposed inclusion in the Paris 2024 Games - in which it will also play no part.

The traceurs, as original protagonists of parkour have become known, were and are deeply offended at Watanabe's "land grab" and "We Are Not Gymnastics" has become a popular rallying slogan across social media.

Other concerns were voiced concerning the impact the FIG proposal might have on the philosophy and atmosphere of an event where stunning, often dangerous routes and moves are lauded.

The FIG take on risky moves was that it did not want to go out of its way to reward them - it just wanted to offer infrastructure to help the event grow.

As the question of parkour’s Olympic status beyond 2024 Olympic Games in Paris becomes ever more relevant, how do things stand now with regard to this very stark difference of opinion?

Last December Watanabe told insidethegames: "I believe parkour has the potential to become a great sport. I've already seen that possibility at the last World Cup in Sofia.

"We will probably be even more convinced with the upcoming World Championships in Hiroshima."

Unfortunately those Championships, originally scheduled for April 2020 and due to start in Hiroshima on Friday (March 25), have now been postponed for a fourth time "due to the COVID-19 pandemic".

On March 2, the FIG Executive Committee ruled that the 2021 Parkour World Cup held in Sofia last September will instead serve as the qualifying event for the 2022 World Games in Birmingham in Alabama.

Watanabe concluded his December statement by saying: "The most important is the development of parkour. Given that potential, it doesn't matter if there is a conflict with other organisations or if parkour will be an Olympic event."

Three months on, and in the wake of the latest World Championships postponement, how does the FIG President now see the overall position vis-à-vis the contending claims of his Federation and Parkour Earth, where Minogue's role as chief executive is now being carried out by committee member Damien Puddle, chief executive of Parkour New Zealand.

Is Watanabe still hopeful he can create a new "community" within gymnastics by including parkour?

"There are 154 countries who are members of FIG," Watanabe told insidethegames. "Most of them have shown interest in parkour and more than 80 countries have already started to roll out activities."

Would he, given his statement that the development of parkour was the most important thing and that it "doesn’t matter" if there is a conflict with other organisations or if parkour will be an Olympic event, be happy to see the sport carried forward by Parkour Earth?

"I believe that parkour enables anyone to learn the basic athletic abilities of human life. I would like as many people as possible to get into parkour," Watanabe responded.

"For this reason, I think that the fact that not only the FIG, but also other many organisations work on parkour is a good thing as it contributes to many health benefits.

"There is no need for the various organisations to have a conflict with each other. As far as I am concerned, I respect the activities of Parkour Earth."

Regarding parkour’s Olympic future, how seriously does he feel the unresolved elements concerning the sport and Parkour Earth’s request to the IOC to reject the FIG submission worked against its inclusion in Paris 2024?

What does he think would assist parkour’s arrival in the Olympic programme?

"Parkour is a sport that helps improve human health," he said. "It is important for us to create large-scale awareness, lots of interest, and work on this wonderful sport. Our primary goal is to develop the sport, not to make it an Olympic sport.”

Asked how disappointing it was that the FIG Parkour World Championships had to be postponed once again, and how significant it will be for that event to be a success, he added: "Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no choice but to postpone the first edition. The plan is to organise this World Championships in October 2022 in Japan.

“My policy is to develop the sport step by step. We shouldn't want too much for the first World Championships. We want only to start with a solid first step.

“There will be many successes and probably a few failures. I want the first step to lead to the second step.

“More than 50 countries are expected to take part in the event.”

Turning to the importance of parkour’s World Games debut in Birmingham, Alabama from July 7 to 17, he commented: "To be honest, I wanted that The World Games come after the first World Championship. Because of the COVID-19 again, the first World Championships will take place after the World Games.

“In my conception, sports competitions form a pyramid. From the bottom to the top of this pyramid, there are national championships, then continental championships, world championships, The World Games and the Olympic Games at the summit.”

The official view from Parkour Earth, as articulated by its chief executive, is rather different. "The evidence is that the FIG’s actions regarding parkour, regardless of any positive intentions, involve the encroachment and misappropriation of another sport," Puddle told insidethegames.

"The global parkour community has made it clear to us that even if they choose to participate in FIG-run activities, they would prefer parkour to be under the aegis of Parkour Earth, especially at the Olympic level.

"Therefore, our mission remains to 'protect the autonomy of the global parkour community by creating and promoting open and responsive structures that develop parkour federations, participants, practice, and culture'."

Puddle, who has a PhD in the Globalisation of Parkour, added: "If the FIG’s actions regarding parkour were truly altruistic, it would not have been intent on proposing it to the Olympic Movement.

"Parkour Earth remains open to engaging with the FIG, if and when it acknowledges that parkour is sovereign and distinct, i.e. not a discipline of gymnastics, and further, that we are the international federation presiding over parkour including at the Olympic level."

One of the most active protagonists for parkour’s cause in recent years has been David Pagnon, who was until recently secretary of the hugely influential French Parkour Federation and is still a Committee member.

Addressing the vexed question of the future of his sport - or is it philosophy? – the 33-year-old underlined the fact that his views were largely personal, coming from someone who has been an active protagonist in parkour since he was 20.

"We are still fighting FIG because they have such an immense amount of power and we are really tiny in front of such a giant," he told insidethegames.

"The position is still the same as it was in 2020. We think it is not quite fair to have such a big body just take over our discipline, just to take it away from us, the traceurs."

That said, Pagnon personally believes parkour may yet find its place in the Olympics.

"I am not sure it is going to stay out of the Olympics in the long run," he reflected. “For now the IOC rejected it because it’s quite new. Nobody likes the way it is organised.

"FIG have paid the athletes to go to competitions. Most of the people invited rejected the invitation so they had find athletes at the last minute and it was quite challenging for them for their World Cup and other competitions.

"The thing is that it’s quite new and the figures are not enough to present parkour at the Olympics, But I’m not sure it’s going to pass very long because they still manage, in the World Cup, to get people.

"If it had been me I would have had a hard time to say no. I could be like, not that good but still good, and I could be the first world champion of parkour. And that would earn money.

"A lot of traceurs they live for their passion and they are really poor. So it would be quite hard to say no. And once it has started it’s like a snowball.

"And it’s impossible to stop. It’s hard in the beginning for FIG, so they put a lot of money and energy into it. But once it will have started it may be even harder to stop.”

Asked about the model of competition FIG has developed within parkour, Pagnon responded: "There are some interesting parts, but they are missing things. The freestyle is less original, always done over the same obstacles. The speed run is always the same route for now.

"Sport climbing is really close to parkour in its evolution. It used to be people were against competition, they were even against climbing on artificial cliffs.

"Now they are at the Olympics with the speed climbing which a lot of people think is not actually climbing, but like a vertical 100 metres."

So does Pagnon think that in, say, 10 years’ time parkour may be where sport climbing is now?

"Unfortunately I think so," he replied. "I am doing artistic performances where I climb big buildings and do different stuff with different traceurs.

"I am working with Antoine Le Menestrel, who used to be one of the very best climbers in the world. And from what I hear from him it’s exactly the same view and evolution as rock climbing.

“He had signed the Manifesto de 19 - 19 of world’s best climbers signing against competition, saying rock climbing should remain free. But then afterwards 15 of them who wrote it participated in competition because they needed the money. From a human point of view it is very hard to resist.

"But then they started building artificial facilities, and now there are some people in the international scene who have never climbed outside.

"Of course when they go outside they are very good still, they have the skills, but it’s just a different approach."

So does Pagnon feel the next objection from Parkour Earth to the IOC may be less vehement?

"Yes," he said. "I feel like the reaction is less and less strong and we are more  getting used to the idea. It is like battle fatigue."

The Tokyo 2020 format for the first Olympic sport climbing event was widely criticised for obliging athletes to take part in an unfamiliar range of disciplines, which some likened to have to run in the 100 and 1500 metres as part of the same competition.

Adjustments will be made in time for the Paris 2024 Games.

Pagnon hopes that, if parkour does eventually arrive at the Olympics, it will not construct similar problems for itself. But - as you might expect of someone used to finding unexpected routes over unpromising objects - his argument ranges far and wide.

"People who are extremely good, the best in the world, have never done competitions because they are not interested and everybody knows they are good because they opened routes that nobody else has manage do do," he said.

"They have quite a different view sometimes of parkour. They work on it for years, whereas someone who does competitions doesn’t have time for it.

"Sometimes they do solo climbing, so don’t take any ropes. So it is different. But they are still very well known, they have that fame.

"You can do parkour anywhere - in the city, in the wilderness, in trees. There are even more possibilities of doing parkour than of doing rock climbing.

"But for those who do parkour in the city, we have been afraid that if FIG is the body which reorganises the sport you cannot be insured if you practise it outside.

"And if there are a lot of artificial facilities then you won’t have the excuse or opportunity to practise outside.

"You won’t be able to tell the passers-by that you are actually doing a sport recognised by a federation."

Pagnon points out profound differences in the models of operation adopted by FIG and by Parkour Earth and its constituent bodies.

“In gymnastics they use the trickle-down model for parkour," he said. "They put a lot of money at the top, into the elite, and hope it will trickle down and have an influence at the lower levels.

"But we are trying to build it in a much slower, less competitive way, to build-from the base in a truly democratic way. So that if the majority of traceurs - the ones who follow parkour - want competition we are going to have competitions.

"Personally I am against competitions, but if the majority wants them I go with that and want them to be the best they can be.

"Unless you have started in a club, which is more and more the case, everyone has done parkour without realising it when they were little, they were climbing on the bed, or jumping from the cupboard.

"Some people want to compete, some don’t want to compete but they want to perform, to jump higher or do more scarey jumps or be very good technically.

"I am not quite against competition but I think there needs to be room for the rest of the spectrum. If people want to be competitive we need to help them to do that in the best way.”