World Championship success for Monash's Cheer Champ Rebecca Fancke

One of Monash’s own Cheerleading Champs Rebecca Fancke (Bec) has taken on the world’s best with her local team from Northcote, and placed 5^th in the International All Star Federation (IASF) World Cheerleading Championships in Orlando, Florida.

The Monash Master of Teaching student competed with team Lady Reign against 42 other teams from all over the world, including the US, Canada, England, France, Spain and Norway.

The event was held over two days in April, but only three teams from each country could qualify for day two of the competition. Bec said her Lady Reign teammates, who competed in the International All Girl Open Level 5 (IO5) division, were all very nervous they would not make it through to the second day.

Rebecca Fancke has been making the 50 minute

commute from her home to train wit her team at

Southern Cross Cheerleading for the past two and

a half years. Photo: Rebecca Fancke.

“Usually in my division there’s only one Australian team, but this year there were four (on day one),” she said.

“We qualified first for Australia. It was unbelievable, we were stoked.”

The team were sitting in fourth place overall after day one, but unfortunately were set back slightly by a fall during their routine in the final day of competition.

“We’re really proud of how we placed, but it was a bit heartbreaking at the same time because one girl fell on the second day,” Bec said.

“If that hadn’t have happened, we would have placed third.”

Lady Reign received a score of 129.3 in the second day of the competition, with just over a point separating them from the third and fourth placed teams from England and Pittsburgh.

The team from Southern Cross Cheerleading in Northcote were given a ‘bid’ to compete at the World Championships after a successful performance at the Australian All Star Cheerleading Federation National Championships in November last year.

Bec said the team, which consists of 22 elite female athletes ranging from 13 to 29 years old, received assistance from ‘world class’ choreographers from the US for their “dynamic” routine.

Lady Reign began preparing their new routine for the

IASF World Cheerleading Championships at the

beginning of the year. Photo: Rebecca Fancke. 

“It’s really fast paced, the speed of it is something that took a really long time to get used to,” she said.

“You can’t just do the technique sloppily, getting that unison is really important and takes a really long time. It’s easy to do one skill isolated but when you’re doing the entire routine it’s harder because you’re exhausted by the end of it.”

Aside from her three days of training each week at Southern Cross Cheerleading, Bec also trains and competes with Monash Cheer, who are hoping to qualify for the World University Cheerleading Championships in South Korea next year.

Bec said she is very grateful for all the opportunities the sport affords female athletes.

“Being an all-girl team, I hope that our journey to Worlds inspires many young girls to work hard, dream big, and know that they are able to achieve amazing things in sport as well as in life,” she said.

“The World Championships represents the pinnacle event for cheerleading, and for a team from a small Australian gym to score so highly against some of the best teams in the world is truly incredible. I can only put our success down to the sheer passion and dedication my teammates have for the sport and for our dream.”

Written by Nell O’Shea Carre, Media Coordinator.