Cheerleading is a Sport

The reason most people think cheerleading is not a sport, is because they do not know enough about it, and therefore have many misconceptions about the topic. A lot of people claim that cheerleading is not a sport because, they think it is not competitive. Also, they sometimes think that cheerleading is not athletic enough to be considered a sport. Another thing people believe makes cheerleading not a sport, is because of the way it is judged. All of these claims are incorrect, and made through a lack of knowledge on cheerleading. Despite what many people think Allstar cheerleading is about, it is a very competitive sport. There are many competitions, some created by Varsity. They say "Varsity created the first high level cheerleading competition in 1980, the National High School Cheerleading Championship, to reward cheerleaders for their work on the sidelines and to create a venue in which they could be recognized for" These high level cheerleading competitions are still growing, becoming more competitive, fitting the competitive section of the definition of a sport. The summit cheerleading competition is a very competitive event, televised on ESPN3 annually. Varsity announces that they "are awarding 107 paid bids and 355 at-large bids at 27 of our premier events". There are lots of competitions to get bids with over 1,000 teams at many of these competitions, and only 5-10 bids that are given out. So, cheerleading is very competitive even though some people think that it is what makes cheerleading not a sport. But, they are wrong about many elements of cheerleading. Some people believe that all cheerleading is not a sport because it lacks physical challenge. However, allstar cheerleading requires a lot of physical effort. Aspects like stunts can be especially challenging. For example cheerleaders do a stunt called baskets, in which they use their legs and arms to propel a flyer upwards in a way for her to be able to complete a variation of tricks from splits, twists, and flips. This is very difficult to do, and takes a lot of muscles and hard work. That is not the only difficult aspect of cheerleading, though. Tumbling, or "flipping" takes many muscles that are usually unused; this section of cheerleading is similar to floor gymnastics which is an Olympic Sport. Because gymnastics is an Olympic Sport, that supports the fact that it is a difficult and intense sports, as all sports in the competition should be. A cheerleading routine is very difficult, and there are some challenging things that every single one has in common. That is the combination of screaming counts, smiling, and doing the other important and difficult parts of a fast paced routine all in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This is very exhausting and hard to do, and is similar to a cardio workout that makes many people feel short of breath. Most people do not know these things about cheerleading, which leads to many misconceptions. The term "Judge" can make for a very good argument against cheerleading being a sport. However, according to the Women"s Sports Foundation, Element III of a sport is "Governed by the rules which explicitly define the time, space and purpose of the contest and the conditions under which a winner is declared". Cheerleading has rules for time (2 minutes and 30 seconds for each team to compete), space (a 54" x 42" mat), Purpose (to get first place, or a bid*), and the conditions under which the winner is declared, is whoever gets the highest score. The Element IV of a sport is "Acknowledged primary purpose of the competition is a comparison of the relative skills of the participants.". However some think that because there is the term judge, that more bias goes into this, however there is a strict point system that is used to judge the "relative skills of the participants". So, while judging is a controversial term in sports, cheerleading still fits the definition and description of a sport. Allstar cheerleading is an amazing and difficult sport, that deserves the recognition of being classified as one. Allstar cheerleading is very competitive, as a sport is supposed to be. Also, cheerleading requires a great amount of skill and physical exertion. An overused argument against cheerleading as a sport, is that the judging and scoring does not fit the requirements to be a sport. However, it does according to the Women"s Sports Foundation. Overall, allstar cheerleading should be classified as a sport, without a doubt. http://aacca.org... https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org...