Community effort to send Tassie girls to Florida ends with gold

Source : ABC NEWS

Just a few months ago, the idea of a small-town cheerleading team from Tasmania’s north-west coast competing in, let alone winning, one of the world’s top competitions was too good to be true.

But last weekend, the Wynyard Wildcatz youth team defied the odds. 

After making the 15,000-kilometre trek to Orlando, Florida, in the United States, they will return as champions.

Loading…

The team of 12 girls, aged between 6 and 12, impressed the judges and surprised themselves by taking out the top prize in the Youth Novice division at Nfinity’s FINALS cheerleading competition, an international event attracting teams from across the world.

“We didn’t come to win. We just came to have fun, and like, we knew the competition was going to be really hard, because there are a lot of amazing teams over the world,” team member Abbie Brett said.

The journey to Orlando

The road to Orlando — and to victory — wasn’t as an easy one.

The Wynyard Wildcatz qualified for the Orlando tournament after winning their division at the Tasmanian State Championships at Kingston in August last year.

The team had never competed outside of Tasmania, and it was going to be expensive to get the team to Florida.

“When the girls originally won in August, I said to Belle the coach, ‘someone’s gotta tell these kids they can’t go to America’,” said parent Megan McGinty.

But over dinner that night, Megan started to run the numbers in her head and began conjuring a plan to get the team to Orlando.

After some brainstorming and spreadsheet-making, Megan started to believe the trip was possible.

With a little bit of convincing, the team got to work fundraising to make their dream come true.

The initial target was $55,000.

Fundraising came in many forms, with the girls and their parents filling their weekends doing everything they could to raise the funds.

This included a Taylor Swift disco, colour run, and selling show bags and braiding hair at the Wynyard Show, among many other events.

Over the six months of fundraising, the value of the Australian dollar dropped, and they had to up the target to raise enough money to make the trip happen.

With the help of some sponsorships, the team was able to raise $64,000 — enough to get the team to Orlando.

The big stage

Just days after receiving their final donation, the team, coaches and parents began the 27-hour journey to Orlando.

Some of the team had never been on a plane before, some had never left Tasmania, and most had never travelled outside the country.

Once at the competition, they were greeted by a scale and spectacle unlike anything they’d experienced in Tasmania.

“It was very overwhelming, because, back where we live, when we go to the competitions, it’s not as big as the competitions here,” Abbie Brett said.

The Wildcatz took a new routine to Orlando that they had trained for about six months on.

On day one of the two-day competition, they “hit zero”, meaning they didn’t receive any deductions from the judges.

They bettered their score on the second day, receiving a “superior score” from the judges — the highest score awarded in cheerleading.

Despite their stellar performance, the team didn’t have any expectations of winning.

“The coaches and some of the mums were saying, even if we don’t win, don’t expect it to kind of happen, because we were facing all of these world teams, and it was just a lot, but it was so unexpected,” said Matilda Thompson.

The team ultimately took out the Youth Novice Division.

“We had high hopes … they did their best. That’s as much as we could ask for from them,” head coach Belle Lohrey said.

Cheerleading in Tasmania

Their success has already caused a stir among their friends and family back home, and the girls say they can’t wait to return and tell everyone about their experience.

Coach Belle hopes the win will draw more attention to the sport in Tasmania.

“It’s not a very popular sport down in Tasmania at the moment, because not many people know about it,” Belle said.

“Hopefully this win makes it more known to the community, so they can come down and at least give it a try.”

As well as increasing the popularity and awareness of the sport, Megan hopes their story will help make people take cheerleading more seriously.

“People underestimate the sport. They think of it as girls with pompoms, but cheerleading is actually competitive. Cheerleading is way more than that. There’s room in this sport for everyone,” she said.