A judged team sport featuring acrobatic stunts, gymnastic tumbling, dance, and synchronised chants on a sprung mat.
Origin and rules
Cheerleading was born in 1898 at the University of Minnesota when student Johnny Campbell led the first organised crowd cheer at a football game. Competitive cheer split off as a standalone sport in the 1980s.
How it plays
Teams perform a 2.5-minute routine on a 12-by-14-metre mat combining stunts, basket tosses, pyramids, tumbling, jumps, dance, and crowd-leading. Judges score on difficulty, execution, choreography, and overall performance.
Competition
The ICU World Cheerleading Championships are the elite event, with the National Cheerleaders Association and Universal Cheerleaders Association running large US series. The United States, Japan, Finland, Norway, and Taiwan are top nations. The IOC granted cheerleading full recognition in 2021 but it is not yet on the Olympic programme.
Find more sports by letter
Cheerleading starts with C and ends with G. Browse other sports along the same letter.
Sports that contain a letter from "Cheerleading":