All-Star How Low Can You Go To Win Gold At Worlds ?

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In the UK our bids always work a year ahead, so competitions in the 2018-2019 season give out bids to the 2020 Worlds/Summit. Otherwise it isn't enough time to save/plan for a trip to Worlds. Our season also runs until mid-summer rather than Worlds/Summit being the final competitions.

Are there any exceptions? Like with the creation of NT did they open up any NT 2019 world bids for this current season or if you create a NT team do you basically have to skip a season and get a bid for 2020?


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Are there any exceptions? Like with the creation of NT did they open up any NT 2019 world bids for this current season or if you create a NT team do you basically have to skip a season and get a bid for 2020?

As far as I know this year there haven't been any NT teams eligible for Worlds bids in the UK so far but I would think that if there were then they'd be going for 2020 bids. I could be wrong but it's very unlikely they'd have offered bids for this season - especially as I think only one bid event has taken place so far in the UK?
I think Unity are planning on having a NT team at the final competition of this season which would be eligible for a Worlds 2020 bid.
 
Are there any exceptions? Like with the creation of NT did they open up any NT 2019 world bids for this current season or if you create a NT team do you basically have to skip a season and get a bid for 2020?


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This is interesting since the creation of the division was supposedly for the benefit of international teams. Defeats the purpose if this year is only teams from US and Canada.
 
This is interesting since the creation of the division was supposedly for the benefit of international teams. Defeats the purpose if this year is only teams from US and Canada.

That’s what I was Thinking as I typed that out...but it also creates a completely possible, legitimate and sensible reason for the scenario described in the OP. Nothing shady in my mind about that.


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This is interesting since the creation of the division was supposedly for the benefit of international teams. Defeats the purpose if this year is only teams from US and Canada.

Totally see your point with this. It's just to do with how the bid season works for international teams as we always compete for bids for the following year. Our first bid event of the season tends to be around March, which is too short notice for teams to go to Worlds the following month. We still have at least three bid events to come this season. I do think there will be a greater uptake of international programmes fielding NT teams in the future, but it'll need to grow the same way the IO5 and IOC6 teams have - starting with a few gyms and then more gyms will start to offer it. I remember when we only had one team representing the UK in IO5 and now we have 8. Programmes here don't have the same wealth of athletes to choose from as teams in the US, and lots of athletes come to the sport late, so it just takes a little longer to build the skills.

I think it will be great to watch how NT grows in the future as I think, especially here, it's a great opportunity for gyms who haven't previously been able to offer a Worlds team due to lack of tumbling skill to really start pushing for those level 5 stunting skills. A lot of gyms won't ever have tried level 5 stunts because they know they couldn't realistically field a competitive level 5 team until now. As more teams start to realise it's a possibility then the division will grow.

Who knows though, maybe International teams who had won bids for 2019 were given the opportunity to change to a NT division if they had a legit reason for wanting to. I'm not on one, so I wouldn't know.
 
Yes I know, my title seems a bit arrogant but in the end, it is a real question, let me explain ;)

Here's why : A team from Norway called Viqueens Spirit who placed 2nd at Worlds 2018 in level 6 (and also have a history of doing pretty well year after year) have decided this year that their best chance to win gold is to go down to All-Girl 5 NT level.

If they'd competed in the category all year, I would be fine with it, but that's not the case. Up to last week (As you'll see further down the thread) they were still competing (And doing well) in Level 6, so my guess is that they got their bids in 5NT in one competition and then got back to usual level 6 schtick.

Now I've been following the 5 NT division closely all year and I think it's a shame that teams like Cheer Extreme Lady Lux who dominated in the US, ACE Vicious, Flyers All Starz Fearless, Copper and Silky Sharks in Canada will very likely place 2nd, 3rd or 4th at best because Viqueens Spirit (And they're not shy about it on social media) will just blow up everybody in the division.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want the Norwegian team to be disqualified, they are a very, very good team and I do want to see them at Worlds, they deserve to be there, but, in a category more suited for them.

I get it that a team can change division or category during a year because of injuries and everything, but going from one of the biggest division/category that is IO-AG-L6 to the newest and most probably the weakest for this year in IO-AG-5-NT, all that in a week span ? I mean come on...would you see that in any other sport ?

There is the possibility they had a whole bunch of girls leave the team for a number of reasons but it sure didn't seem like it in this clip form a competition held last week : .

I know they wont be able to do the tumbling part and that most of their stunts are level 6 but their skill level is so high that I can't imagine them messing a more simpler level 5 move...

So, is there a rule at USASF or IASF for which category a team should compete at Worlds ?



I haven't even read through all the other answers because this just makes me so upset. I know a lot of americans want to win everything and will go to great lengths to do so, but don't assume everyone has got that as their main goal.

Viqueens is an amazing gym, and they WANT to compete io6. However, like GCO wildcats (back to back bronze champions), they have too many girls that are too young to be on io6 for worlds this year. The norweigan age grid is different, allowing them to still be in all girl premiere in norway. They're also not allowed to be team norway at icu solely because they want to compete at iasf worlds.

Both the age grid, divisions and competitions are VERY different over here, even between norway and sweden. They only have senior all girl elite and premiere, aka level 5 and 6. They still have every intention to stay io6 in the future, hence why they're still competing all girl premiere at home.

They also won their bid last year (in march), when they won nationals. Over here, there are only one national competition and one national champion. One chance for a bid. We are getting more and more open competitions pop up, but they don't give out bids to worlds. It's not like they switch back and forth between io6 and nt5, because there is no such thing as nt5 here, nor can you switch back and forth to earn bids at random competitions.

As you said, they can't tumble in nt5 so that's not an issue. Though they're already at a heavy disadvantage as far as tumling goes, as there are no spring floor over here.. And yes they can stunt level 6, but that's a completely different ballgame to level 5. I would much rather base a flipping toss than a kick double, all the grips are different to make certain skills legal, most stunts they're used to they can't even do (free flipping mounts and dismounts, 2.5 high pyramids). It's probably harder for viqueens to try and sort a nt5 routine out in the middle of the season, than it is for all the american teams that can perfect their nt5 routines all season.

Also, why the heck should they not be allowed in that division? There's always so much smack about only the top 3 moving on from each country in international, now you don't even want other countries to enter the new divisions because the division doesn't exist in their country? A LOT of american team switched divisions, both before and through out the season, to the division they felt they had the best opportunity, this is no different, other than the fact they're not even allowed in io6..

If this was an american team with only 3 running fulls and the rest tucks, y'all would be screaming for them to either drop to level 4 or go non-tumbling. But now it's an international team, they're just doing it for the "easy win"..

And YES they've known the whole season those athletes were too young, and yes they've planned to compete level 5 all season because of that. But since they have other competitions which are probably equally as important to them as worlds (nationals and europeans for example), where those athletes are allowed to compete level 6, why the heck should they not include them for the season if they're part of the best athletes to try out? Solely for worlds? Yeah no, that's not a thing!

I'm sorry but all this talking is making me legit angry.

Don't bash what you don't know.
 
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This is interesting since the creation of the division was supposedly for the benefit of international teams. Defeats the purpose if this year is only teams from US and Canada.
In the coed NT division
There are 23 US teams, 18 have bids. 6 Canada teams all have bids, 1 Australia team has a bid, 2 or 3 from Chile have bids, 1 or 2 from Colombia have bids, 1 from Mexico has a bid, 1 from Guatemala who does not have a bid. England just formed a team within the last few weeks or have tryouts at least for a NT team for next season. I dont know about any other European countries or other locations around the world yet. For all girl NT, known teams are so far US, Canada, and Norway. The coed divison is much larger.
 
In the coed NT division
England just formed a team within the last few weeks or have tryouts at least for a NT team for next season.

Unity had tryouts a few weeks back. Aiming to take their NT team to a competition in July this year where they would be eligible for a bid for Worlds 2020.
 
I haven't even read through all the other answers because this just makes me so upset. I know a lot of americans want to win everything and will go to great lengths to do so, but don't assume everyone has got that as their main goal.

Viqueens is an amazing gym, and they WANT to compete io6. However, like GCO wildcats (back to back bronze champions), they have too many girls that are too young to be on io6 for worlds this year. The norweigan age grid is different, allowing them to still be in all girl premiere in norway. They're also not allowed to be team norway at icu solely because they want to compete at iasf worlds.

Both the age grid, divisions and competitions are VERY different over here, even between norway and sweden. They only have senior all girl elite and premiere, aka level 5 and 6. They still have every intention to stay io6 in the future, hence why they're still competing all girl premiere at home.

They also won their bid last year (in march), when they won nationals. Over here, there are only one national competition and one national champion. One chance for a bid. We are getting more and more open competitions pop up, but they don't give out bids to worlds. It's not like they switch back and forth between io6 and nt5, because there is no such thing as nt5 here, nor can you switch back and forth to earn bids at random competitions.

As you said, they can't tumble in nt5 so that's not an issue. Though they're already at a heavy disadvantage as far as tumling goes, as there are no spring floor over here.. And yes they can stunt level 6, but that's a completely different ballgame to level 5. I would much rather base a flipping toss than a kick double, all the grips are different to make certain skills legal, most stunts they're used to they can't even do (free flipping mounts and dismounts, 2.5 high pyramids). It's probably harder for viqueens to try and sort a nt5 routine out in the middle of the season, than it is for all the american teams that can perfect their nt5 routines all season.

Also, why the heck should they not be allowed in that division? There's always so much smack about only the top 3 moving on from each country in international, now you don't even want other countries to enter the new divisions because the division doesn't exist in their country? A LOT of american team switched divisions, both before and through out the season, to the division they felt they had the best opportunity, this is no different, other than the fact they're not even allowed in io6..

If this was an american team with only 3 running fulls and the rest tucks, y'all would be screaming for them to either drop to level 4 or go non-tumbling. But now it's an international team, they're just doing it for the "easy win"..

And YES they've known the whole season those athletes were too young, and yes they've planned to compete level 5 all season because of that. But since they have other competitions which are probably equally as important to them as worlds (nationals and europeans for example), where those athletes are allowed to compete level 6, why the heck should they not include them for the season if they're part of the best athletes to try out? Solely for worlds? Yeah no, that's not a thing!

I'm sorry but all this talking is making me legit angry.

Don't bash what you don't know.


Let me make one thing clear : Never, ever, was it about USA vs The World or even America vs The World, never been about a country or a continent, I would've questioned the move if it were a US or Canadian based team, with all due respect, maybe if you would've read the whole thread, you would know better where I'm coming from.

The questioning was mostly about the rules, or the « unwritten rule » about how down can you switch down.

Let's go at it another way, let's say we have 9 categories per level.
Level 6 Large A-B-C, Level 6 Medium A-B-C, Level 6 Small A-B-C
Level 5 Large A-B-C, Level 5 Medium A-B-C, Level 5 Small A-B-C, and of course, Level 5 NT

Now if you start the year at Level 6 Large A and lose some girls in the process, you'd logically switch down to Level 6 Medium, then Small and that's about how low you could go. Same goes for Level 5 A to 5 NT.

If it's an age thing, so you don't lose any athletes but they are unable to compete, yet are still on the team, then you have the same number of athletes but by their age, they can compete at Level 6, you'd logically go from Level 6 Large A to Level 5 Large A.

Just to make sure, those are examples, since almost everybody got what the subject was all about, I'm going to the simpliest of examples, I know there are Co-Ed teams or XS teams, and Senior is different than Intl and so on and so forth.

So, if by my estimate, and anybody who followed the season knows it, we can't hide our heads in the sand here, the new Level 5 NT All Girl division will, at least for this year, be the weakest at Worlds...kind of the entry level if you will.

There's lots of reasons for this, the most important one being that gyms didn't know what to expect of the competition so almost every one built their 5 NT team differently. To big gyms had enough athletes to put together a strong team with lots of Worlds experience, all the way to small gyms who didn't have enough tumblers and saw an opportunity to try their chance at Worlds and anything in between from medium gyms to others giving a final chance to athletes that were going to leave because of age and/or injuries and/or lack of tumbling skills etc etc...

Again, solely based on my humble opinion, there was maybe 4 or 5 good to great teams that competed against each other this year in US and Canada and I was looking forward to see them battle it out for the gold at Worlds.

Then, when I read Viqueens athletes and supporters on social media saying they were gonna dominate Worlds this year, get revenge for their 2nd place last year (They won silver last year in IO Level 6 AG Large) by switching down to Level 5 NT, it bugged me and got me questioning the rules of cheerleading in general.

Of course I went to check them out and saw a video of them doing an L6 routine a week ago (Albeit not their best one but nonetheless, I could see they had skills...) Of course I didn't know about all the rules and regulations as it pertained to European teams.

So, by that logic, the questions I asked here were : Is there a time frame in which you can switch or can not switch anymore ?

And : How low can you go to win Worlds ? Isn't there a rule that prevents a L6 A (Or B) team to switch down all the way to L5 NT (Who might be C-) team ? If there is no rules, is it ethical to do it ? If not, what would be an acceptable gap ?

Or like I said, maybe the reality of cheerleading makes it right and everything's ok and may the best team win !

Again, sorry if you took it for bashing and by the way, I think you're right when you say we shouldn't bash something we don't know, and maybe my way of bringing up the subject seemed a bit arrogant, but in the end, it was only a matter of questioning, which is what anybody should do when he or she doesn't know everything on a subject, don't you think ?

That said, good luck to every team in the All Girl 5 NT division, Viqueens will have a chane to WoW everybody from the get go since they will be the 1st ever team in history to perform at Worlds in the category, they drew #1 at yersterday's lottery!
 
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The questioning was mostly about the rules, or the « unwritten rule » about how down can you switch down.

Let's go at it another way, let's say we have 9 categories per level.
Level 6 Large A-B-C, Level 6 Medium A-B-C, Level 6 Small A-B-C
Level 5 Large A-B-C, Level 5 Medium A-B-C, Level 5 Small A-B-C, and of course, Level 5 NT

Now if you start the year at Level 6 Large A and lose some girls in the process, you'd logically switch down to Level 6 Medium, then Small and that's about how low you could go. Same goes for Level 5 A to 5 NT.

If it's an age thing, so you don't lose any athletes but they are unable to compete, yet are still on the team, then you have the same number of athletes but by their age, they can compete at Level 6, you'd logically go from Level 6 Large A to Level 5 Large A.

Just to make sure, those are examples, since almost everybody got what the subject was all about, I'm going to the simpliest of examples, I know there are Co-Ed teams or XS teams, and Senior is different than Intl and so on and so forth.

So, if by my estimate, and anybody who followed the season knows it, we can't hide our heads in the sand here, the new Level 5 NT All Girl division will, at least for this year, be the weakest at Worlds...kind of the entry level if you will.

Hey! Just wanted to clarify what you are talking about here because you've described how teams would "switch down." This kind of "switching down" that you've described is not allowed without getting an entirely new bid. If a team gets a bid to Worlds, that bid is only good for the exact division that they earned the bid in. So say a team that got a bid in Senior Medium Coed wanted to reconfigure as a Senior Small Coed team--they would have to compete at another bid event as a Senior Small Coed team and get an entirely new bid.

This actually happened this year--Cheer Extreme Code Black competed as a Small Senior Open Coed team and got a bid. At a later competition, they got a bid as an International Open Coed NT 5 team . I believe they are going to worlds as NT 5. But they couldn't just say "oh we want to do NT 5 now, let's just go to worlds as NT 5"--they had to go to another bid event and actually get another bid as an NT 5 team.

You can even lose a bid if you don't change divisions, but make too many roster changes. That happened to the Cheer Athletics Cheetahs this year--they got a full paid bid, and then had to make some roster changes and it was enough that under the rules they had to give up their full paid bid. Fortunately for them they were able to go to another competition and get a new full paid bid.


So In summary: a team can always switch divisions but they can only do so if there is time to go to another bid event and if they are successful at winning another bid. I hope that helps you understand the process! And I think it allays some of your concerns--teams that have earned a bid can't just willy-nilly change divisions whenever they feel like it. They have to put in the work to make a new routine, go to another bid event, and actually win another bid in the division they want to switch into.


Please let me know if I misunderstood you! And other wiser people please chime in if I made any mistakes. (One day, I will understand all of the rules...one day)

Edit: added a little more because long train ride
 
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Again, sorry if you took it for bashing and by the way, I think you're right when you say we shouldn't bash something we don't know, and maybe my way of bringing up the subject seemed a bit arrogant, but in the end, it was only a matter of questioning, which is what anybody should do when he or she doesn't know everything on a subject, don't you think ?

"Don't you think" you could have come up with a more appropriate title if "matter of questioning" was truly your intent?
 
Let me make one thing clear : Never, ever, was it about USA vs The World or even America vs The World, never been about a country or a continent, I would've questioned the move if it were a US or Canadian based team, with all due respect, maybe if you would've read the whole thread, you would know better where I'm coming from.

The questioning was mostly about the rules, or the « unwritten rule » about how down can you switch down.

Let's go at it another way, let's say we have 9 categories per level.
Level 6 Large A-B-C, Level 6 Medium A-B-C, Level 6 Small A-B-C
Level 5 Large A-B-C, Level 5 Medium A-B-C, Level 5 Small A-B-C, and of course, Level 5 NT

Now if you start the year at Level 6 Large A and lose some girls in the process, you'd logically switch down to Level 6 Medium, then Small and that's about how low you could go. Same goes for Level 5 A to 5 NT.

If it's an age thing, so you don't lose any athletes but they are unable to compete, yet are still on the team, then you have the same number of athletes but by their age, they can compete at Level 6, you'd logically go from Level 6 Large A to Level 5 Large A.

Just to make sure, those are examples, since almost everybody got what the subject was all about, I'm going to the simpliest of examples, I know there are Co-Ed teams or XS teams, and Senior is different than Intl and so on and so forth.

So, if by my estimate, and anybody who followed the season knows it, we can't hide our heads in the sand here, the new Level 5 NT All Girl division will, at least for this year, be the weakest at Worlds...kind of the entry level if you will.

There's lots of reasons for this, the most important one being that gyms didn't know what to expect of the competition so almost every one built their 5 NT team differently. To big gyms had enough athletes to put together a strong team with lots of Worlds experience, all the way to small gyms who didn't have enough tumblers and saw an opportunity to try their chance at Worlds and anything in between from medium gyms to others giving a final chance to athletes that were going to leave because of age and/or injuries and/or lack of tumbling skills etc etc...

Again, solely based on my humble opinion, there was maybe 4 or 5 good to great teams that competed against each other this year in US and Canada and I was looking forward to see them battle it out for the gold at Worlds.

Then, when I read Viqueens athletes and supporters on social media saying they were gonna dominate Worlds this year, get revenge for their 2nd place last year (They won silver last year in IO Level 6 AG Large) by switching down to Level 5 NT, it bugged me and got me questioning the rules of cheerleading in general.

Of course I went to check them out and saw a video of them doing an L6 routine a week ago (Albeit not their best one but nonetheless, I could see they had skills...) Of course I didn't know about all the rules and regulations as it pertained to European teams.

So, by that logic, the questions I asked here were : Is there a time frame in which you can switch or can not switch anymore ?

And : How low can you go to win Worlds ? Isn't there a rule that prevents a L6 A (Or B) team to switch down all the way to L5 NT (Who might be C-) team ? If there is no rules, is it ethical to do it ? If not, what would be an acceptable gap ?

Or like I said, maybe the reality of cheerleading makes it right and everything's ok and may the best team win !

Again, sorry if you took it for bashing and by the way, I think you're right when you say we shouldn't bash something we don't know, and maybe my way of bringing up the subject seemed a bit arrogant, but in the end, it was only a matter of questioning, which is what anybody should do when he or she doesn't know everything on a subject, don't you think ?

That said, good luck to every team in the All Girl 5 NT division, Viqueens will have a chane to WoW everybody from the get go since they will be the 1st ever team in history to perform at Worlds in the category, they drew #1 at yersterday's lottery!

I did read it through, and it made me even more angry and add on to my reply. If your only intent was to question the rules, you wouldn't go out of your way to make such an example of viqueens. Stating how they switch back and forth only to win worlds, when you didn't know half of why they chose what they did. They haven't switched just in these few weeks, they've been entered as nt5 for the entire season for worlds. There are far "worse" examples of teams trying to get an "easy win" than a norwegian io6 team in somewhat of a rebuilding year, with three running fulls, going nt5 for worlds. (Putting quotation marks because there is no such thing as an easy win, even a level 5 team dropping to level 1 has to actually be able to do the skills and hit them, just as much as anyone else. And everyone competes where they feel they will succeed, even though it's not the end all be all, we all want to win.)

You also claim to have seen enough cheerleading to know that a level 6 athlete can do level 5 with ease, which is not the case. Then you need to watch more cheer. As I stated, most everything is different, mounts, dismounts, grips, pyramids.. Level 6 is not a step up from level 5 like the rest of the levels progression wise (braced quarter up lib, half up lib, half up lib ext, full up lib ext, double up lib ext, for example), it's completely different. Stunting level 5 is in a way more technical than level 6, level 6 is basically toss and catch, and especially for flyers. A double up and down, is technically harder than a rewind mount and tuck dismount.

You being sad/mad/whatever that you won't only get to see your 5 amazing north american teams "battle it out" is not a valid reason to throw a temper tantrum. Anyone can field a team and compete which ever level and division they want, as long as they follow the age restrictions, crossover restrictions and have a bid if it's a bid competition. It's all legal and fair. This entire season everyone's been upset how there aren't any teams in that division and the top teams won't even have any competition, now that there are competition, then that's the issue.. Literally cannot win with this crowd.

You also make such a big deal about it being non tumbling, they only have 3 running fulls, why would they not go non tumbling? Would you be equally as mad if they went io5? Because they only have io5, global 5 and nt5 to choose from.. Switching from io6 to nt5 is also not "all the way down", it's literally one level, and taking out the tumbling, which doesn't even matter since no one in the division is tumbling. It's probably a bigger deal to have a team switch from say LAG to SAG in a season, because it's way easier to find 22 elite level 5 athletes than 38.. But if that's where the coaches see their team fit, that's where they'll compete!

I was going to keep this answer short, but it all just irks me to no end. I'm sorry if I come off as harsh, but bad mouthing others is probably my number one most hated thing. Especially with no grounds to do so.

Honestly, your whole thread doesn't sound arrogant, it just sounds ignorant.
 
I’m just face palming reading this entire thread. UK wise Unity & Coventry Dynamite both have NT teams that I imagine they will try and get bids for. I also think that some currently level 5 teams will go to NT after worlds to get a bid (don’t see any reason why not seeing as there’s quite a few teams with not many elite tumbling skills- or even safe level appropriate skills)
 
I don't know when they got their bid, but I think bids (maybe it's competitions outside the US only?) can be deferred to the next season if the competition is 'too close' to the worlds dates.
Canada you get your bid the same season you would compete at worlds. B.C and Ont comp season is generally late nov- end of April. So teams would have to get the bid during that time. The only comp I am aware of is Sea To Sky in B.C that gives bids to the following year. You used to be able to attend that year or defer to the next year but I believe in recent years because it is so close to worlds/summit it was changed and now are the 1st bids of the next season. Aka this years teams have already won their bids for worlds 2020. Also Canadian teams can only win bids in Canada, can’t win them in the US. Which is another topic... (GW and Queens in past years definitely out scored teams and didn’t get bids at American competitions because of this rule) Not sure how the EU works tho I can only speak for Canada..
 
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