Cheerleaders sparkle at international competition
The Flyers All-Starz Knockout All Girls cheerleaders don’t do pompoms.
The 23-member team from Flyers Gym in Pierrefonds won the All Girls International Level 5 trophy May 1 at the World Championships of Cheerleading in Orlando, Fla. And they did it by delivering a winning demonstration of athleticism and synchronization.
The competition, organized by the U.S. All Star Federation, gathers elite teams from clubs all over the world to compete in 12 divisions and is considered the foremost competition for club teams on the international circuit.
Competitive cheerleading routines combine tumbling, jumping, dancing, flexibility, daring stunts, spectacular poses and extreme teamwork.
The “flyer” — tiny-boned and flexible — is supported by her “base” athletes who toss and then support her landings as she executes stunts with names like scorpion, needle, cobra and basket toss.
The higher the level of difficulty of the stunt or ensemble work and the cleaner the execution, the higher the mark. “Spotters” dressed in black hover nearby during the riskier stunts to break a fall if need be. Each judge specializes in marking one aspect of the routine. The Flyers received 138.5 out of a possible 150 marks for the winning routine.
“We had a lot of support from the audience. Around 1,000 people made the trip (from Quebec) to support us,” coach Jessika Jodoin said. “When everything hit (was successfully executed) they went wild.”
It is the first time Flyers Gym has won the Level 5 All Girls trophy. The club, owned by Vanessa Jacob-Monette and Charles Lanoue, has finished in the Top 3 nine times and won in three categories. Jodoin coached the winning team with Monette and Lanoue.
The pompom cheerleading you see at high school football games is still very much alive, but the more athletic approach to the discipline has been steadily gaining in popularity in Canada over the last 10 years.
In 2009, the national team — Team Canada — competed in the International Cheer Union World Cheerleading Championships for the first time. Team Canada won the bronze medal in the All Girl Premier division at the ICU championships in May.
There are now over 40 recognized competitive clubs in Canada. The Fédération de cheerleading du Québec was established in 2003 and now has more that 7,500 members.
Jodoin, 27, was a high school cheerleader until the urge to do something a little more athletic and risky took hold and she joined Flyers Gym in 2009.
She said movies like the hypersexualized cheerleader romp Bring It On send the wrong message about the sport.
“Everybody is dependent on everybody else. If one person makes a mistake, it affects everybody,” Jodoin said. “The athletes begin their training at Level 1 and gain the necessary skills in a safe way as they move forward.”
Flyers Gym has 300 athletes learning cheerleading skills from as young as three years old right up to a parents’ team called Mom & Dad. Some teams are purely recreational and others compete.
“For the athletes, the win means we can hang with the big gyms on the international circuit,” Jodoin said. “And the win gets the word out and brings more people to the gym.”