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South Surrey cheer squad set for world championships

Champion Cheerleading is set to send a 23-person team to Orlando next month.
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Champion Cheerleading's Flawless team celebrates after winning a bid to go to world championships next month.

Nearly two dozen cheerleaders from the Semiahmoo Peninsula are getting ready to take on the world.

South Surrey-based Champion Cheerleading is set to send a 23-person team, dubbed ‘Flawless’, to World Cheerleading Championships in Orlando, Fla. from April 22-25.

The team – coached by club co-founder Kate Wickham and Janice Bodnar – is Champion’s first Level 5 team the club has had since opening seven years ago. The Flawless team – made up of girls 14 years old and up – earned a berth at worlds after a top-3 finish at an event in Edmonton earlier this year.

“They performed their routine amazingly,” said Wickham, who founded the club with her sister, Emily Wright. “This is such a huge honour to represent Canada and compete against the best of the best.”

The team, Wickham said, practises three to four times per week, “perfecting high-level gymnastics, stunting and pyramids.” In Orlando, the team will perform the same routine that won them the bid in Edmonton, only with a bit higher degree of difficulty, Wickham explained.