Lilou Ruel

Ruel was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan, Normandy. As a young child, she lived in Turkey for two years. Upon returning to France, the family settled in Plaisance-du-Touch, a suburb of Toulouse.^[2]

Ruel's first foray into sports was tennis and speed skating.^[1][3]

Ruel completed her Baccalaureate in Economics and Social studies at Lycée de Tournefeuille in 2021.^[2][4] After taking a gap year, she began studying to become a stuntwoman at Campus Univers Cascade in Northern France.^[2]

Ruel became interested in parkour at age nine,^[1] and began training later that year.^[2] At age 11, one of her parkour videos went viral.^[2] She began competing at age 14, coming third at the 2017 Air Wipp competition in Sweden.^[2][3] In 2018, she took five months off from the sport following an injury.^[2] At age 16, she competed at the 2019 Red Bull Art of Motion.^[1]

During the COVID-19 lockdown, Ruel continued to train in her family's garden, and began to consider pursuing free running and parkour as a career.^[3] In September 2020, she competed in the virtual E-FISE competition, winning silver in the parkour freestyle event.^[5]

At the 2021 Red Bull Al-Andalus, Ruel won the women's event.^[6] Later that year, she won gold in the women's freestyle event and silver in women's speed at the 2021 Freerunning and Parkour World Cup in Sofia, Bulgaria.^[2][7][8]

In May 2022, Ruel became the first woman to try and complete the 4.5m gap/15m tall 'Manpower' jump in Évry, France.^[9][10] That year she also won three medals: bronze in the women's category at the Parkour World Championships, bronze in women's speed^[11] and bronze in women's freestyle at the Parkour World Cup.^[12]

In July 2024, Ruel performed in the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, being one of nine people to portray a masked torchbearer. She reprised the role for the Olympic Champions Parade in September 2024.^[13]