To begin her Worlds routine, junior Alexis Welch is tossed 20 feet into the air. The stunt is a blur, but Alexis has her stunt memorized — she kicks out both legs, then whips her legs and arms close to her body to spin twice in the air.
The hard part is coming down, free falling out of control towards the mats. But Alexis has been with this team for 10 years. She trusts them, and this trust keeps Alexis calm as drops. She knows that the three girls below her will catch her softly, cradle her to the ground, keep her from slamming into the mats.
But she’ll only have a half-second to breathe before she begins a set of back handsprings across the floor.
Sophomore Lucy Tubbert isn’t a flyer, and she doesn’t risk her body in basket throws or scorpion poses high on top of a pyramid of cheerleaders. Yet as a base, Lucy holds the safety of her flyer in her arms.
She has only been on her team for two months, yet she has earned the trust of every flyer at All-American Cheer and Stunts (AACS) by supporting them without wobbling, by throwing her body under them to cushion a bad fall.
Because more than anything — more than stunts or tumbling, than competition or trophies — cheer is a sport that revolves around the importance of the team. Trust means everything when Alexis is twisting through the air, or when Lucy is preparing to catch her flyer.
And trust supports the two girls and their teams when they compete at Worlds, an international invitation-only competition that decides the annual world champions in competitive cheer. Only three teams in each division at Worlds will walk away with a trophy, but the competition means more than that to Lucy and Alexis.
It’s about proving that Alexis’ team from Kansas — not a dominate state like Texas or California — can hold its own in the Large All Girls’ Division. Worlds is about proving that Lucy’s team of 11 cheerleaders can fill up the mats as well as 30. It’s about pride and enjoying the greatest competition of the year — together, as a team.
Throughout Alexis’ ten year career, her team had always missed one goal — qualifying for Worlds. In the eyes of her coach, Michael Whitney, this was not because of their lack of talent, but because of the competitiveness of the Large All Girls’ Division.
While other Worlds categories might have up to 80 or 90 teams that qualify for Worlds, Large All Girls’ has an average of 10 competitors — meaning higher talent and higher stakes. In over 20 years, several gyms have dominated this division at Worlds.
Out of every gym in the world, only five of those gyms have ever placed in the history of Worlds.
“It’s the division that everyone stops what they’re doing to watch,” Whitney said. “These are the best competitors at Worlds, and it’s astounding to watch and even more astounding to compete in.”
With little over a year left in her cheer career, Alexis’ Worlds qualification came at the perfect time. In their first competition of this year’s season, her team received for a partial bid, meaning that they are qualified but have to pay their way.
“I honestly don’t remember that performance,” Alexis said. “It was all a blur, and I just went through the motions. We had worked so hard for so long that all I had to do was relax and hit everything.”
Lucy isn’t the veteran that Alexis is — she has only spent two months on her team at AACS — but she feels the same trust among the 11 cheerleaders who she fondly refers to as her brothers and sisters.
When she joined as a stand-in for an injured cheerleader, Lucy’s skills weren’t strong — she couldn’t tuck into a backflip after doing two split leaps, and she only had a half twist at the end of her tumbling pass. But Lucy was good enough. Within her first week of competitive cheer, she was competing in Washington D.C. for a Worlds qualifier.
“I was worried walking into this team, because there’s this whole stereotype that [cheerleaders] are going to be mean or not want the new girl on their team,” Lucy said. “But they were there for me the whole time, immediately taught me the routine, and I honestly feel more at home with them than I have with any other team I’ve been on before.”
The day after the competition, AACS received their Worlds bid. A month later, Lucy got her tuck flip. She landed her full twist. And a month later, Lucy was a solid part of the AACS Worlds team.
When it comes to the competition itself, both Lucy and Alexis don’t have high expectations. They don’t doubt their talent, but they know that the nature of their divisions makes it difficult for anyone to place — especially small gyms from Kansas.
But they are happy. A Worlds bid is a trophy in itself — a certificate that Lucy is good enough to be on a Level 5 cheerleading team, that Alexis is on one of the top 10 teams in the world.
“It’s an honor to even be invited to Worlds, especially for us,” Alexis said. “We want to make an impact, we want to do well and we want to place. But just being there and competing is already a dream come true.”
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