May 10, 2023 11:15am
The IASF Cheerleading World Championships takes places every year at the ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Florida. Established in 2004, around 9,000 athletes from over 40 countries compete in the event every year. There are 22 Worlds Divisions; comprising of levels 5, 6 and 7, and include tumbling and non tumbling divisions, both in all girl and coed teams.
Over the course of 3 days, qualifying teams take part in preliminary competitions, semi-finals and finals performing a two and half minute routine. Each routine is judged on both difficulty and execution of jumps, standing tumbling, running tumbling, pyramid, basket tosses, dance, performance, and overall routine composition and creativity. Teams strive to obtain a score with no deductions, otherwise known as "hitting zero" and the top teams advance to the next round of competition.
I have been training as a cheerleader for 10 years and have been training with Phoenix Stars Gemini since August in preparation for our Worlds competition. We train twice a week for 2 hours at a time, working on the elements needed within our routine and perfecting these. Our team is comprised of 15 female athletes aged between 15 and 28. We compete in the International Open Level 5 All Girl Division.
We travelled to Florida prior to the competition and trained daily; sometimes multiple times in one day. It took some time to acclimatise to the time difference and training in the heat, but we knew it would all be worth it. We had some amazing opportunities to train with other teams; GCA Chrome from Bristol UK and RCA Smoke from Saskatchewan Canada. They really inspired us and reminded us why we have worked so hard all these years to get to where we are now.
On Day 1 of competition at semi-finals we performed a perfect 0 routine which got us through to day 2 in 8th place out of 36 international teams! We then competed on day 2, performing with some mistakes which meant some deductions to our overall score. After a challenging day 2, we headed to awards and finished as 12th in the world in an extremely competitive division!
If this article has inspired your child to start cheerleading, here are some links to local competitive teams:
Storm Athletics (stormathleticsuk.com)
Jessie Leigh Dance & Cheer Academy - JLDC (jldcuk.com)
I will be running some free after school cheerleading workshops in the Summer Term, details will be distributed via form tutors and school social media sites.
I would like to thank Mr Woodall, Mrs Parker and TSAT for their support in allowing me to take time away from TPA to compete at Worlds. Hopefully this journey will inspire students to chase their dreams; anything is possible with hard work, resilience and high aspirations.
Miss Kimber, Teacher of Dance