Monash Cheer and Dance blitz 2019 Nationals Div 1 with seven medals

Our Cheer and Dance teams blitzed the competition at 2019 Unisport Nationals Div 1 on the Gold Coast last night, taking out the overall prizes in both disciplines and seven team medals!

The Cheer and Dance team had 64 athletes competing across eight divisions at the event, and finished the night with six gold medals and a silver.

All girl level 6 Atlas Cheer team perform their gold medal winning routine. 

Team organiser Hayley Shreeve said the group had high hopes going into the competition, but were not anticipating going this well.

“We were really excited, we did feel like we had a really good team going forward this year. We had good results at comps throughout the year, and everyone’s put a lot of training into it,” Hayley said.

“But you only have 2.5 minutes on the floor, and sometimes things go wrong. So much training can go into it, but those 2.5 minutes are everything, and you just never know what other teams are going to bring.”

Six different Monash Cheer and Dance teams won gold: 'Apollo' level 3 coed Cheer, 'Atlas' level 6 all girls Cheer, 'Minerva' Pom, 'Harmonia' Jazz, Pom doubles and Jazz doubles. Hip Hop doubles took silver, and the 'Hercules' Hip Hop team are still waiting for the results of their event, in a commendable performance that did not land them a top three spot. 

This is the first time the team has competed at Unisport Nationals since 2017, as last September they were in Poland at the World University Championships, where they showed their calibre against the international competition and returned with three silver medals. 

Several of the competing athletes this week were part of the successful World Championships team in 2018, but as with all university sports there is a high turnover of players, so many of the team members were making their Unisport Nationals debut last night on the Gold Coast. 

The event this week is one of two qualifying competitions for the 2020 World University Cheerleading Championships in Korea.

The team will be bidding for another spot on the World’s team at the AASCF National Cheer & Dance Championship in Melbourne this November. 

Written by Nell O'Shea Carre, Media Coordinator.