Cheerleading Definition

(source: http://www.thelittlegym.com)

Cheerleading, a sport that requires physical fitness, flexibility, coordination and hard work, uses organized routines made from elements of tumbling, dance, jumps and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games and matches and/or compete at cheerleading competitions. The athlete involved is called a cheerleader. With an estimated 1.5 million participants in all-star cheerleading (not including the millions more in high school, college or little league participants) in the United States alone, cheerleading is, according to Newsweek's Arian Campo-Flores, "the most quintessential of American sports." The growing presentation of the sport to a global audience has been led by the 1997 start of broadcasts of cheerleading competition by ESPN International and the worldwide release of the 2000 film Bring it On. Due in part to this recent exposure, there are now an estimated 100,000 participants scattered around the rest of the world in countries including Australia, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

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