Jump for joy! How cheerleading conquered the world, from Lagos to Ho Chi Minh City

When photographer Christian Sinibaldi first visited world champion cheerleaders London’s Unity Allstars Black, in January 2020, he had no expectations. In fact, he admits , he had “a few stigmas associated with cheerleaders”. What he learned that day surprised him. “I loved the energy, the connection between people,” he says. It kickstarted a fascination that would take him around the world to capture a sport on the cusp of global popularity, a project that took him from the markets of Ho Chi Minh City to the tunnels of Lagos stadium.

Cheerleading has long been associated with high school movies and glittery sideline entertainment, but it has a rich history – one that has fascinated me since I cheered at high school in the 90s. My master’s thesis was an ethnography of cheerleading, following a squad throughout a season. For my doctoral dissertation, I wrote a cultural history of the sport. Cheerleading began in the US in the late 19th century, growing out of the civil war and finding a place among the sidelines of elite all-male higher education institutions. There were almost no women cheerleaders until men went to war in the 40s. In the latter half of the 20th century it was feminised and sexualised, before evolving into a competitive athletic endeavour of its own as a result of second wave feminism. It has since been further democratised and radicalised – there are squads of all ages and genders, advocating for all manner of social justice causes.

No longer constrained to the sidelines of other players’ games, cheerleaders now take centre stage, competing for medals in routines of two and a half minutes that consist of stunts, jumps, tumbling, dancing and cheering. The latest variation is known as all-star cheer: athletes divorced from any other sport, who cheer for one another and, ultimately, themselves.

Soon Olympic gold may be on the line. In 2004, the International Cheer Union (ICU) was recognised as the worldwide governing body for cheerleading. With 119 National Cheer Federations and 10 million athletes worldwide, it shows a global demand and popularity within a formalised, scorable system – all-important criteria for Olympic consideration. The International Olympic Committee recognised cheerleading as a sport in 2021, an important distinction that may one day lead to official Olympic status. The ICU offers training and certification for coaches – of particular importance in places such as Azerbaijan, Ivory Coast and Mongolia, where cheerleading is less common.

• Main image: junior members of Kazakhstan’s Cheer Republic team perform in Independence Square in the capital city, Astana, in front of the Hazrat Sultan mosque. Above: members of Athens’ Amazons cheerleading team practise in the seaside suburb of Vouliagmeni

For Sinibaldi, this meant he could travel the world in pursuit of new cheer communities. “I’m very interested in how photography can be used as a tool to talk about communities and people,” he says, “so the sport in this case is an excuse for me to talk about how young people are helping each other to grow.”

Vietnam’s Saigon Beast team, which formed in 2017 and came third in the Asia Cheerleading Invitational Championships that year, has grown from just six members at the start to 20 today. Husband and wife coaches Hung and Trang Le are self-taught, spending hours on YouTube learning techniques and practising choreography. She is a real estate agent and he works part-time in marketing and event management, while trying to move to full-time coaching. Cheerleading is the couple’s passion and special bond – they create everything, from the costumes to the stunts and routines, and dedicate all their spare time to the team.

Sinibaldi captured the squads both in and outside of their typical practice spaces: in one of the oldest parts of Ho Chi Minh City; the streets of London’s Soho; a market in Lagos where he involved so many local people to help him stop the traffic that he earned himself a nickname that roughly translates as “the special one”. The shoots weren’t without their dangers; Sinibaldi recalls a cheerleader falling on his head during one. Competitive cheer, with its heightened focus on stunting and tumbling, can lead to injury: concussions, broken bones and sprained ligaments are common.

Whether he was in Athens in Greece or Astana in Kazakhstan, cheerleaders talked to Sinibaldi about teamwork. “Everybody was saying that you might see the flyers performing this incredible stunt,” he says of those at the top of a pyramid or being thrown into the air, “but obviously they would be nothing without the base. It is a very pyramidal structure, but everybody plays a fundamental role.”

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Cheer Kazakhstan

• Senior members of the Cheer Kazakhstan elite national team and junior members of the Cheer Republic team perform in a food market in Astana

• Team members include Sofia Dekhtyareva, 15 (left), who likes cheerleading’s ‘acrobatic elements, beautiful and complex jumps, spins and lifts’. Mula Liana, 14 (right), who has been champion of Kazakhstan in 2022 and 2023, and hopes to represent her country one day, agrees, adding, ‘The main thing is not to give up’

• Members of Cheer Kazakhstan’s Esquire team go through their paces in front of the Expo 2017 sphere in Astana

• Practising in Independence Square

• An Esquire team member in a food market in Astana (right) and parents of Cheer Republic team members helping them get ready

• Members of the Fox team in Ust-Kamenogorsk, in the east of the country

• A Fox training session at the ice hockey stadium

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Lagos Cheer Nigeria

• Hassana Musa, 32 (centre, in the air), started when she was 26 and says, ‘It’s the hardest thing I have ever done. But I love it because it makes me stand out and makes me stronger. Some parents are not supportive, because it’s dangerous and doesn’t bring in any money. That can make things harder’

• Gabi Esther, 16, has been cheerleading for seven years. ‘What I love is that no matter what happens, we stand by each other. Being a cheerleader in Lagos feels very good. Other teams look up to us – when they see our stunts, they are amazed’

• The team have been training twice a week, around the main stadium in Lagos and on the streets of Yaba suburb, for eight years. There are almost 100 members who do one or two performances a month

• Eniola Aluko, 21 (centre), loves everything about cheerleading: ‘When I tell people what I do, they are really impressed. But I still haven’t overcome my fear of tumbles. I tell myself pain is inevitable for athletes’

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Amazons, Athens, Greece

• Eva Petrosian, 17, practises on Varkiza beach (top) and in the gym (above). ‘When I first joined the team, aged six,’ she says, ‘the director asked why I had come and I answered, with great confidence, “I am here for the Olympic Games.” We are now very close to that goal. The cheer mat is a happy place for me. Practising every day for hours with the same people leads to incredible bonds’

• Eleftheria Xynou, 20, has been a cheerleader for more than 13 years. ‘I love the energy, the teamwork, the discipline and the joy it brings me. It does come with challenges, especially the physical and mental fatigue, but cheer teaches you to surpass your limits. Through it, I experienced the joy of representing my country and winning gold at the 2023 European championships’

• Eleftheria Ntani, 13 (in the air), practises with other team members in front of the Church of Agios Nikolaos in Vouliagmeni. ‘Every practice is full of challenges,’ she says, ‘but as a team we work through them’

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Unity Allstars Black, London, England

• Lauren Gray, 22 (on right), started cheer in 2016 after being a gymnast for eight years. ‘I competed for Team England in 2019, placing fifth in the world! In 2022 I joined Unity Allstars, as a 22-metre flyer, and won silver at the world championships. I am aiming for another win this year’

• For Maddie Hart, 23 (above and on left of top picture), doing gymnastics growing up helped her cross over to being a flyer. She competed with Team England in 2023 and says, ‘Performing on the world stage for your country is a feeling I will never forget’

• Team members train in the gym (top) and on the streets of Soho

• Danyal Golabi, 31, was 19 ‘and wanted to learn a backflip when my course mate dragged me along to cheer. I competed with Queen Mary Angels and in the university world championships, and later joined Unity Allstars Black. After Covid I came out of retirement to rejoin and compete with Team England’

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Saigon Beast, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

• The cheer team practise early in the morning, in Chinatown. The sport has been growing in popularity since 2010, when it was included for the first time in the national sports competition for university students

• Hung Le and his wife Pham Thi Thu Trang (left), co-founders and coaches of the team, admit, ‘Our parents don’t approve of our choices and we have had a hard time being accepted. But cheer makes us happy.’ For Nguywn Thanh Trung, 23 (on left, with fellow team member Nguyen Danh Nam), ‘The bond between flyers and bases makes me feel as if I have another family’

• Phuong Vi, 17 (above and in the air in top picture), started cheerleading in high school. ‘When I saw it for the first time, it looked so fun and exciting,’ she says, ‘especially the role of the flyer’