This April, 35 Australian cheerleading teams will travel to the US for the sport’s largest annual international competition, Cheerleading Worlds. There, they will join upwards of 500 teams and 11,000 cheerleaders to compete for the title of World Champions.

All Star cheerleading is far from the sideline chants depicted in American media. Instead, teams compete choreographed routines for a panel of judges, who assess overall performance, difficulty, execution, and creativity in stunting, tumbling, jumps, and dance. The criteria vary across age groups, levels, gender categories and abilities.

Each All Star cheerleading team belongs to a club where they train and often share a uniform. Most clubs will have teams in a variety of age categories in levels ranging from level one to the advanced level seven.

One of those clubs is Thomastown’s Atomic Allstars Cheer, co-owned by Maria Davis and Jessica Nugent since its opening in 2013.

Growing up, Maria was fascinated by the American cheerleading she watched on ESPN. Later, in 2011, when doing adult gymnastics, she met some university cheerleaders who introduced her to Australian competitive cheer.

“I remember seeing the La Trobe University jacket at the time, and I remember thinking, I want that jacket,” she tells upstart.

When Atomic opened its doors in 2013, Maria and the other owners sought to make an impact in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, where very few clubs were operating.

“It’s been amazing to see it grow from being eight athletes all the way into between like two and 300 athletes, all enrolled at the same time,” Maria says.

This April, Atomic’s Ice Queens will compete at Cheerleading Worlds.

“Once a team does set their sights on Worlds, it kind of becomes a whole different ball game because the training ramps up, the cost ramps up, and just generally, the physical and mental resilience has to ramp up,” Maria says.

In 2021, cheerleading received full sports recognition from the International Olympic Committee, but this doesn’t guarantee a place in the Olympics. Instead, cheerleaders around the globe turn to Worlds as the sport’s Olympic alternative.

The three-day event, held annually each April in Florida, US, is open to eligible high-level international teams. A team must compete in a competition with an available bid – a formal invitation.

For many competitive cheerleaders, Worlds is the final goal before retirement.

Amongst the 35 Australian teams set to grace the Worlds stage is Atomic’s Ice Queens, an all-girl level six non-tumble team.

Ice Queen Lauren Choi joined the cheer world in mid-2019 when a university friend approached her at the Australian Catholic University (ACU) library, asking if she would like to try out. She was then involved in the ACU team for several years before joining Atomic in 2022.

Now, after two years on the team, Lauren will be going up against the best of the best at Cheerleading Worlds. Her team has been training rigorously for the competition since they received their bid last year.

“It’s a lot of building up fitness. In the regular cheer season, when you get past States and going towards Nationals, your fitness really improves; we’re having to go past that,” she says.

This year, Lauren has taken on coaching her old ACU team. It is common for higher-level athletes to begin their coaching journeys with younger or lower-level teams.

Carly Eyckens of Melbourne Cheer Academy’s (MCA) Phoenix has coached on and off for several years since joining a recreational cheer team 12 years ago.

Carly has many proud achievements, including becoming an international champion at the Global Games in Hawaii. However, her favourite experience was coaching Atomic’s Icons, a level one adult team consisting almost entirely of beginner cheerleaders.

“It was just the most supportive, beautiful group,” she says. “They didn’t care about competition; they didn’t care about having to be the best or anything like that. It was just a group of women who got together to have something for themselves.”

When it comes to coaching, Carly finds that the main challenges are earning the trust of your athletes and remembering the basics when you might not have competed at that level in years.

“If you can’t exhibit that you can do those skills already, then it is more difficult to get athletes on side to listen to you,” she says.

Like many athletes, injuries among cheerleaders are common.

A US study from 2022 found that concussions and musculoskeletal injuries are most common, with ankle and wrist injuries being more frequent due to the weight-bearing nature of the sport.

Lauren Choi is no stranger to injury and has experienced knee problems over the years. Despite this, Worlds won’t be the final hurrah for Lauren, who expects she will remain at the club for years to come.

“By the age of 19, I had torn both my ACLs,” she says. “Eventually, I know that my knees are going to give out on me; however, hopefully, that doesn’t stop me from still coming in and doing a recreational team.”

18-year-old Sophie Palmer began cheerleading just over eight years ago and has had a similar experience with cheer-related injuries.

In 2024, Sophie was in her second year at MCA when she was selected for a team to compete in Europe. The team won, earning the title of international champions. However, she never got to compete or travel to Europe, having broken her ankle while training.

“Despite everything with the injury, the hardest part was the mental aspect because I couldn’t do the one thing that I really wanted to do,” Sophie says. “This year, I’m back to competing. I’m level four, and I finally get to wear the uniform I was supposed to wear in Europe.”

Despite the year-long setback, Sophie still has her eyes set on the Worlds stage.

“I’m not quitting cheer until I go to Worlds as an athlete,” she says. “I don’t care if I have a billion injuries … I’m going.”

Article: Angelina Giannis is a second-year Bachelor of Media and Communications (Journalism and Politics) student at La Trobe University.

Photos: 1. Photo by Emily Klimevski 2. Supplied by Atomic All Star Cheer 3. Supplied by author