Cheerleaders at Rapid City’s Rushmore Athletics have been doing well in national competitions.
This year the all-star cheerleaders at Rushmore Athletics have astonishingly improved compared to other years, with level two Obsession getting grand champion and winning the January 2024 Valentine’s Classic competition in Sioux Falls. Rushmore Athletics has been a cheer gym for four years and will become five on May 19, 2024. Rushmore Athletics—also known as RA—is an all-star gym founded by Jenna Farrar.
All-star cheer is different from the normal cheerleaders that you see in movies or at schools. All-star cheerleaders learn a two-minute and 30-second routine that features jumps, tumbling, stunting, and a lot of people’s favorite parts of the dance.
This year there have been a total of four competitions already with the average place at the second competition being first, with one Grand Elite Champs. This year all of the full-year teams got bids to the world, with youth-level-one getting a full bid to the world in Florida. The teams that got the bids are Obsession, Vengeance, Vendetta, and Black Ops.
The Rushmore Athletics family is familiar with worlds, with this being the second year. They happen around April and May. Worlds are like the NFL for cheer, just less gambling, money, and cuss words. What the All-Star cheerleaders are competing for in worlds is the chance to move on to day two as well as the chance to get onto the stage. The stage is the top five still standing. This year they have higher hopes of getting back up there and placing higher, with the chances of winning the whole thing or getting close up there.
I asked 7 out of 11 team members on the Obsession team what they think about this season in one word. The words they said were amazing, dedicated, good, hardworking, perfect, remarkable, and slay. Jenna said, “The teams are better because of all the hard work they put in over the summer.”
Obsession is not the only team that is taking home the first-place titles. At the Valentine classic on Sunday, January 28th competition, the places were Toxic, Militia, Reckless, Envy, Mayhem, Rampage, Vengeance, and Black Ops. All got first with some teams getting the best jumps, level champs, and best tumbling. Vendetta had the toughest division, but they tried their best and did awesome. Compared to last year’s placing all the athletes have improved both in skill and in mindset.
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