A Rising Talent | An Interview with Rachel Gough

So, to start off. Who is one of your favourite Parkour athletes at the moment?

This is an impossible question, how can I pick just one? There are so many athletes that I love watching such as Joe Scandrett who really inspired me to try descents and Hazal Neir who is definitely a reason for my movement being more parkour based instead of just flips now. A few other mentions are Kevin Franzén and Georgia Munroe who are super cool.

How and when did you first start training Parkour?

I went to an open gym session when I was 13 with my best friend who did trampolining at the gymnastics centre. I met I few people there who trained parkour, but I ended up starting gymnastics again since I’d done it when I was little. At 15, after 2 years of training gymnastics, never really being that good and having a hard time with my coaches, my friends from the parkour centre convinced me to quit completely and I started training parkour. I started taking classes at Paramount Parkour and haven’t looked back since.

Despite Parkour, If you had all the time, resources and motivation in the world, what would your desired profession be? Being a dragon? *She breathes fire BTW!

Being a dragon does sound fun, but I seriously like the idea of being a professional fire performer. I’ve done a few fire shows at festivals and for bonfire nights as well as videos with Satori Media. Spinning fire is really fun and oddly relaxing for me, and fire breathing is always a good party trick!

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Other than Parkour, what makes you happy on a daily basis?

Definitely music! There’s something about it that just never fails to make me happy, I like such a wide range and really enjoy listening to other people’s playlists too see what they like. I’m self-taught on the bass so I do that for fun, although I’m not that great at it, it’s still fun.

So, we know that your home country is England. Whereabouts do you live in the U.K.? What are the positives and negatives of living and training there?

I live surrounded by a bunch of fields in a small village in the countryside, the closest city is Milton Keynes which is about a 30-minute drive away. I’d be lying if I said the spots were good, they’re not, don’t train in Milton Keynes. But a positive is the Paramount Gym which is always fun and the coaches there are pretty awesome. I’ve also got to shoot some fun projects with Stevie and Josh from Satori Media who are based in Milton Keynes which are always so much fun!

If you were to live anywhere in the world, in any situation, where and how would that be?

That’s a hard question, I haven’t thought about it that much. I definitely want to live in Europe somewhere for a short while cause I think that would be really fun, as long as there are cool people I’m happy anywhere.

What is your favourite thing about Parkour that you really respect and cherish?

Definitely the community, I’ve met some of the most amazing people through this sport and I’m so grateful. The support from everyone when I’m trying to break a skill or jump that’s really scary for me always makes me so happy and makes the feeling of overcoming the challenge even better, even if it ends up with a broken hand...

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I believe that you have travelled to a few different European cities to train and explore... Which cities or locations are at the top of your training bucket list? And why?

I was lucky enough to travel to Switzerland this summer with Elise to see Levio and had such an amazing time, as well as Copenhagen with Kevin and Bastian which was so much fun. The spots in Copenhagen were so amazing and I definitely want to go back to explore further. I also really like the look of Madrid and Portugal because the spots look really good. The aim this year originally was to hopefully qualify for NAPC so I could go to America, but corona came and messed that up, so now that’s the goal for next year! I really want to try competing in skill as well as in a female-only category as I’ve never had the chance before.

What is one life lesson that you have learnt, big or small, that you might want to share with the readers of this interview?

Don’t forget to check in to your Ryan air flight online at least 2 hours before your departure else they’ll charge you over £50 and then you’ll have to go to Scotland for a week with £4.29 in your bank account and will be forced to eat nothing but beans.

Last but not least, what are 3 facts about you that people might not know?

1. I have a pet chicken.
2. I currently have a broken hand.
3. I’m studying engineering and chemistry.

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Happy to have this fire breathing, chicken loving gal on the team. Welcome, Rachel. Check out the interviews with the other Flow athletes on our Blog Page.