Lexii Hubbard

Sports Award

Age:

13

Biography

My name is Lexii and I am a 13 year old competitive cheerleader with Premier Star Cheer.

I have been a cheerleader since I was 5 years old, and initially started this as a fun recreational activity once a week to keep me busy and because I wasn't really a ballerina!! I soon became hooked on the sport, and started to compete with my team in local competitions about 4 times a year. After taking part in a few local competitions, I was inspired by our national competition teams and wanted to compete nationally. Cheerleading is a team sport and this helps learn key life skills from a very early age, such as, trust, teamwork, communication, collaboration, etc. Our competitions involve travelling all across the country, competing in large venues, such as Resorts World in Birmingham and often being there from 7am to very late at night! Very quickly I started to increase the number of teams that I competed with, which means more training at the gym which I love. I now train 4 times a week for a total of 9 hours. When we compete, we are in different divisions and levels, depending on our age and the skills that we are able to do. We are often against lots of other teams in our division, however, we still cheer, clap and shout for others competing, as Cheer is a really friendly environment and we appreciate everyone's hard work and determination. The main goal at each competition is to get the best score that we can and "hit zero". Hitting zero means that we have performed our routine without any deductions (so, no stunts fell, all tumbles landed and we kept to all the safety rules) and then our score can further be improved by our skills and performance scores.

COVID-19 really hit our teams hard, as we were just about to compete at international competition in Sweden, where we were hoping to score enough points to receive a bid to go to the World Championships. This was a real blow to all of us (including our coaches and parents) as every cheerleader's ambition and dream is to be luckily enough to have the opportunity to compete at the All-Star World Championships in Orlando (which takes places every April/May). This is where you get to compete against the best of the best and represent your cheer gym and your country. In Leicester, we took longer to return to the gym because of the many additional local lock-downs that we had, and this was a really tough time, not being able to do what I loved and see my friends. As soon as the gym re-opened, we were straight back into training and working towards getting competition ready again.

I was lucky enough to be in 2 teams representing Premier Star Cheer at an international competition in Barcelona in 2022. From there, we were worked hard and were so lucky to be given the chance to compete at the World Championships in 2023 and this is a memory that will forever be close to my heart. I was so nervous because this was the biggest stage/arena that I have ever competed in and the event was being televised. Thankfully, we were on very early in the morning, so didn't have too much time for the nerves to kick in. All we wanted to do was go out there, hit zero and make our coaches, parents and supporters proud. Hearing them cheering us on from the front, really spurred us on and we performed our routine the best we had ever done. Everyone was in tears at the end (happy ones, of course) and the sense of achievement was like no other feeling in the world. I was so proud of myself, my team, and our coaches. But, most importantly proud and forever grateful to my parents (and other parents) that unconditionally support me every step of the way from paying my fees each month, take me to competitions, buy merchandise, pay for travel costs and without them I could not do the one thing that I love beyond anything else. One of our older teams won a silver medal, an amazing result and so inspirational for everyone else.

We are thrilled that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has officially recognised cheerleading as a sport from July 2021 after 12 long years of campaigning from the International Cheer Union. This Olympic recognition is so important, because for so long we have battled negative stereotypes, such as most people thinking that it's just dancing with pom poms!! Nothing could be further from the true reality of All-Star Cheerleading. We are athletes and even though our routines are only 2 minutes 30 seconds in duration, these are jam packed with stunting, tumbling, dance etc. We have many different roles within our teams from being a flyer, back-spot, front-spot and basers, and it takes every single person working together to make our team.

Our main focus now, as well as our normal competitions, is to compete in Germany next March. From here, we again hope to be able to once again go back to the World Championships. When I first started I would never in my wildest dreams have thought that I would even get to go once, let alone potentially go back again. One day, my dream is to compete for Team England and also compete in the Olympics and look back on where it all started as an excitable 5 year old that just wanted a new hobby.

I am so grateful to the Joe Humphries Memorial Trust's Inspire Awards scheme for supporting me in my journey to help me develop as an athlete. With their help, it will massively help me and my team on our journey to Germany to help with things like hiring a training gym while we are there, travel to and from the airport, help with competition kit and entry fees. We currently rely solely on our parents and us fund raising and this award truly means so much and will help us all. On a personal note, knowing that other people (who don't even know me) also believe in me and are willing to provide support is so overwhelming and words can never express how truly thankful I am.