Gestión de competiciones y federaciones de Cheerleading

Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to entertain the audience, or for competition. Cheerleading routines typically range anywhere from one to three minutes, and contain components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting. Cheerleading originated in the United States, where it has become a tradition. It is less prevalent in the rest of the world, except via its association with American sports or organized cheerleading contests.

Modern cheerleading is very closely associated with American football and basketball. Sports such as association football (soccer), ice hockey, volleyball, baseball, and wrestling will sometimes sponsor cheerleading squads. The ICC Twenty20 Cricket World Cup in South Africa in 2007 was the first international cricket event to have cheerleaders. Some Brazilian association football (soccer) teams that play in the Brazilian Serie A have cheerleading squads, such as Bahia, Fortaleza and Botafogo. In baseball, the Florida Marlins were the first Major League Baseball team to have a cheerleading team.

Cheerleading originated as an all-male activity in the United States, and is popular predominantly in America, with an estimated 3.85 million participants in 2017. The global presentation of cheerleading was led by the 1997 broadcast of ESPN's International cheerleading competition, and the worldwide release of the 2000 film Bring It On. The International Cheer Union (ICU) now claims 116 member nations with an estimated 7.5 million participants worldwide.

Around the end of the 2000s, the sport had gained traction outside of the United States in countries like Australia, Canada, Mexico, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. However, the sport does not have the international popularity of other American sports, such as baseball or basketball, despite efforts being made to popularize the sport at an international level. In 2016, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) recognized the ICU (International Cheer Union) as part of the sports federations; in practice this means that the modality is considered a sport by the IOC, and in the future, depending on negotiations and international popularization, it could become part of the Olympic Games.

Scientific studies of cheerleading show that it carries the highest rate of catastrophic injuries to female athletes in sports, with most injuries associated with stunting, also known as pyramids. One 2011 study of American female athletes showed that cheerleading resulted in 65% of all catastrophic injuries in female sports.

In the 1860s, students from Great Britain began to cheer and chant in unison for their favorite athletes at sporting events. Soon, that gesture of support crossed overseas to America.

On November 6, 1869, the United States witnessed its first intercollegiate football game. It took place between Princeton University and Rutgers University, and marked the day the original "Sis Boom Rah!" cheer was shouted out by student fans.

Organized cheerleading began as an all-male activity. As early as 1877, Princeton University had a "Princeton Cheer", documented in the February 22, 1877, March 12, 1880, and November 4, 1881, issues of The Daily Princetonian. This cheer was yelled from the stands by students attending games, as well as by the athletes themselves. The cheer, "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Tiger! S-s-s-t! Boom! A-h-h-h!" remains in use with slight modifications today, where it is now referred to as the "Locomotive".

Princeton class of 1882 graduate Thomas Peebles moved to Minnesota in 1884. He transplanted the idea of organized crowds cheering at football games to the University of Minnesota.

The term "Cheer Leader" had been used as early as 1897, with Princeton's football officials having named three students as Cheer Leaders: Thomas, Easton, and Guerin from Princeton's classes of 1897, 1898, and 1899, respectively, on October 26, 1897. These students would cheer for the team also at football practices, and special cheering sections were designated in the stands for the games themselves for both the home and visiting teams.

It was not until 1898 that University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell directed a crowd in cheering "Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-u-mah, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-So-Tah!", making Campbell the very first cheerleader.

November 2, 1898, is the official birth date of organized cheerleading. Soon after, the University of Minnesota organized a "yell leader" squad of six male students, who still use Campbell's original cheer today.

In 1903, the first cheerleading fraternity, Gamma Sigma, was founded.

In 1923, at the University of Minnesota, women were permitted to participate in cheerleading. However, it took time for other schools to follow. In the late 1920s, many school manuals and newspapers that were published still referred to cheerleaders as "chap", "fellow", and "man".

Women cheerleaders were overlooked until the 1940s when collegiate men were drafted for World War II, creating the opportunity for more women to make their way onto sporting event sidelines. As noted by Kieran Scott in Ultimate Cheerleading: "Girls really took over for the first time."

In 1949, Lawrence Herkimer, a former cheerleader at Southern Methodist University and inventor of the herkie jump, founded his first cheerleading camp in Huntsville, Texas. 52 girls were in attendance. The clinic was so popular that Herkimer was asked to hold a second, where 350 young women were in attendance. Herkimer also patented the pom-pom.

In 1951, Herkimer created the National Cheerleading Association to help grow the activity and provide cheerleading education to schools around the country.

During the 1950s, female participation in cheerle