CHEERLEADING: ON TRACK AS AN OLYMPIC SPORT!
Today the International Olympic Committee announced that it has granted Full Recognition Status to the sport of Cheerleading: this means that Cheerleading is now eligible for inclusion in the Olympic games. Cheerleading could feature as an event as early as 2024!
The voting, which took place at the 138th International Olympic Committee Session held today in Tokyo, Japan, awarded the International Cheer Union (the international governing body for the sport of cheerleading) the full recognition after a three-year provisional status period.
The new status means that an Olympic host nation is now able to select Cheerleading for inclusion at its games, and while this seems most likely to happen in Los Angeles 2028 (host nations tend to favour sports they’re good at, and where better to debut cheerleading than it’s birthplace in the USA?!), many new sports debut the previous games at the Junior Olympic championships – as happened with Breakdancing in Rio 2018 - now tabled for inclusion in the main games in Paris 2024.
It is hoped that this new Olympic status see Cheerleading on its next step to the games, and that recognition will assist cheerleading programmes around the world at the grassroots level to access better funding and support to develop. Karl Olson, International Cheer Union's Secretary General said today in their press release that "We're truly honored as this represents an important opportunity to continue working to evolve cheerleading on a global scale."
Cheerleaders around the world will be looking forward in earnest to Tokyo 2021 starting this Friday, with the dream that one day it could be them on the podium. With their sights set on gold, coaches will need to level up their education and training, in order to provide cheerleaders with everything they need to become elite high-performance athletes. For coaches seeking to push their teams to the next level and align their coaching knowledge to the National Standards of sports education, the CheerConditioning.Academy’s Sports Performance for Cheerleading curriculum and courses is a great place to start.
Accredited by the United States Centre for Coaching Excellence, the twelve short courses and the full certification provide a natural step into the world of sports performance with a holistic approach to physical training, anatomy, nutrition, injury prevention, recovery and sports psychology.
The 7 Olympic values of friendship, excellence, respect, courage, determination, inspiration and equality are perfectly encapsulated in Cheerleading, and we cannot wait to support our community of coaches on the next exciting steps of their journey to the games!
The video below and the script was made in 2013 with a vision of cheerleading as a sport, in the hope that one day it may be recognised as it deserves.. today, its message is more relevant than ever!
Dedicated to all cheerleaders and coaches who believe cheerleading is a sport, and cheerleaders are athletes:
You tumble. You stunt. You jump.
You are an athlete.
You know cheerleading is as demanding as any other sport.
Your body doesn't care if cheerleading is recognized or not.
Your body doesn't care if cheerleading has the respect it deserves.
Your body only cares about the hours, weeks, months of training it takes to go full out for those two and a half minutes.
Your body cares that it hurts. It's pain, it's sacrifice to be a cheerleader.
No one can deny it's work to learn a skill, to repeat it again and again until you can't get it wrong.
Your mission is ongoing: Be faster. Be sharper. Be stronger.
Be better than last year. Better than every other cheerleader training for the same goal.
Be number one.
Every fibre, every cell, every part of body remembers what it's like, how it hurts to to get it wrong.
And still you go again.
You train - you trust - you give it all you've got.
150 seconds - that's all you have. That's what you live for.
Others may not get it, but that's not important to you - you persevere no matter what.
Champions are made through dedication, by pushing further. By never letting enough be enough, by wanting more. By knowing you will be better tomorrow than you are today.
So you push, you train hard, your body powers through. On your own, and with your team. With one heartbeat, striving for the perfect performance, where everything hits.
Unleash your potential and reach for gold.
This is Cheerleading. This is INTENSITY.
Created by Jessica Zoo, Production by Martin Wan at Pixel Definition, Written by Jessica Zoo and Rachel BP, starring Aviator Allstars, voiceover by Jacinto Rodriguez III HOSS Choreography, Recording by Johnny Jermaine Piggee Premier Athletes
