Some people believe cheerleading is not a sport but I am here to tell you otherwise.

The Women’s Sport Foundation gives the basic definition of a sport as “a physical activity that involves propelling a mass through space or overcoming the resistance of a mass; a contest or competition against or with an opponent; is governed by rules that explicitly define the time, space and purpose of the contest and the conditions under which a winner is declared; the acknowledged primary purpose of the competition is a comparison of the relative skills of the participants.”

Cheerleading checks the these points of the definition of a sport such as overcoming the mass. The mass would be the flyer, the bases lifting a person to achieve a skill. Also, the sports definition must have competition which is proven here as well. Both high school and competitive teams have availability to compete or not compete just depending on the team and making an executive decision of the team. Alternative options are just to support for games for the high school sport teams, and competitive teams can just show their routine was a demonstration. 

In high school, there is not necessarily a competition that you are in at that time, but there are high school competition teams. The high school cheer teams are using all the other factors of sports to support your team.  

Some people believe if it is not in the Olympics, it is not a sport. Here is a reason to prove this thought is incorrect. There are a lot of activities that we consider sports that are not in the Olympics. Baseball and golf were just put into the Olympics the year of 2016 in Rio but we considered them sports as I do as well. There are very high difficulty sports as cheerleading is as well.  

According to an article in CBS News , the International Cheer Union is hoping to get the sport into the Olympics. Jomo K. Thompson is the head coach of the 20 time national champion college team University of Kentucky. “If this happens, I believe it will inspire more young athletes to pursue it as a profession,” Thompson said. Just recently a proposal was made to have cheerleading added to the 2020 Olympics, but $25,000 will have to be fundraised before to even make this a possibility. This proposal is a chance for the world to see cheerleading in the different way.