Cheerleading: Booragoon team heading to Florida for world meet

A LOCAL cheerleading outfit will target top ten finishes when it competes at two of the biggest competitions in the world.

The Booragoon-based TNT All Stars will head to Florida in April for the World Cheerleading Championships and May’s Summit Championships.

TNT secured a berth at Summit, an invite-only event, via its strong performances at the All Things Cheers Showdown in October.

Its elite team, “Nukes”, won the right to compete at the World Championships thanks to its showing at the National Championships in Melbourne last November.

Gym owner Stephanie Pyke – herself a two-time World Championship silver medallist with Canada’s Cheer Sport Sharks – said she was thrilled to be taking four squads overseas but admitted there were many firsts to be experienced by her athletes.

“To be honest we don’t know what to expect from either competition as we’ve never been,” she said.

“There are some amazing American and Canadian teams to go up against so we will just aim for the top 10 on this trip.

“It’s a lot of pressure for the athletes to fly to America and compete against some of the big guns over there.

“All we can do is train the kids to do their best and hope that happens when they are on the competition floor.”

Pyke said the three teams heading to Summit would compete using routines perfected throughout 2017.

TNT’s World Championships team will run a revised version of its National Championship routine, with some fresh choreography.

“We have a few international guest coaches coming out to work with each team and again in February so they usually tweak each routine and the skills in them,” Pyke said.

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