Dominic Di Tommaso: From Garbage Man to Red Bull Sponsored Athlete

As the sport of parkour has transcended from the margins to the mainstream, Dominic Di Tommaso continues to excel

Dominic Di Tommaso

Dominic Di Tommaso did the majority of his growing up in suburban Sydney after moving from Brisbane when he was 13. He had parents willing to go that extra mile to support anything he wanted to pursue, and by his admission, he didn’t have to worry about very much. At school, however, Dom was a bit of a lone wolf and struggled to find the experience stimulating on any level – a feeling I think a lot of parkour people can relate to. The combination of his boredom and highly extroverted personality would repeatedly lead him to trouble.

Dom always had an affinity for movement though and discovered parkour whilst at performing arts school – where his primary focuses at the time were the more graceful arts of figure skating and ballet. Dom was very good at figure skating and was competing and training full time. He won his first Australian championships at age 9, and by the time he was 16 had won 3 more, and was starting to look into the international competition!

But in terms of parkour, sometimes a YouTube video or two is all it takes to spark something big! One day, at school, Dom and his friend were watching ninja videos, which eventually led them to the classic ‘crazy Russian climbers’ Video, featuring a young Oleg Vorslav. He was so inspired that he went out on his lunch break and just “tried it”. He formed an instant connection with the sport. His imagination was captured by the constant movement, and the possibilities for athletic expression.

“The parkour has always been unique in the sense that we were birthed in the time of the Internet,” says Dom. “So as awareness of the sport grew, it was a worldwide community from the get-go. But in saying that, there are also nowhere near the same numbers when I started that there are now. There was a very small margin of people – you could almost know everyone’s name within the global community – as opposed to now where there are hundreds upon thousands of practitioners globally.”

For the first 18 months of his training, Dom kind of did his own thing, occasionally roping his friends in to join. It wasn’t until he started attending a gymnastics center – standard parkour procedure in the late 2000s – that he met other serious tracers for the first time. He quickly bonded with the Sydney parkour scene and was invited to help teach classes soon after. Connections with the wider Australian scene inevitably followed.

“I understood basic training fundamentals from the background of organized sports and because of that, I was very attracted to the idea of it where you just go out by yourself and train on what you’ve got, as opposed to a certain time or for certain competition or structures. You’re just doing it for yourself.”

DOMTOMATO – February 2022

Since the sports has got attention, it is changing perceptions from others. “We’ve been quite lucky in the sense that most people who have come into the sport are respectful people if we’re asked to move on, the community generally encourages the athletes to apologies and move out of that location and follow the guidelines and follow the rules. We’re not trying to do anything wrong; we’re just trying to train our bodies and are interested by the obstacles that are there. But the general perception is quite good, most people are very responsive.”

So, what is going to be in his future plans? “I’d love to continue being as involved in the community and growth of the sport globally as I can. A big part of it for me is trying to get as many people involved in it so they can see the helpful aspects to it, like overcoming physical and mental barriers that can be learnt from the sport.”

Sources: