A cheer team from Kelowna won gold at the world cheerleading championship in Florida, making them the second B.C. team to ever win on the world stage.
Over the weekend of May 4, the Okanagan Firestorm Cheerleading’s Crossfire team flipped, stunted and twisted at the all-level world cheerleading competition called the Summit Championship in Orlando, Florida.
Crossfire team won the International Open Level 4 division at the Summit beating out teams from the USA, Luxembourg, Germany, Norway and Denmark for the global title. Last year the squad finished fourth in the same division.
Crossfire was the only team from BC to attend the competition this year. They are now the second team in the province’s history to bring back a champion title. Over the past seven years more than 25 teams from B.C. have competed at the world championship in Florida.
The team qualified for Worlds in January at the Cheerfest in Abbotsford B.C.
Crossfire is made up of 16 athletes ages 15 to 29 from the Okanagan.
Coach Nikki Parrotta said that for the past year the athletes have been dedicated and training hard. The cheerleaders practice several times each week and have had to miss out on life events in order to prioritize the team on their journey to gold, said Parrotta.
To learn more, follow Okanagan Firestorm Cheerleading on Facebook.