Is cheerleading dangerous? According to the New York Times, acrobatic manoeuvres such as throwing women (known as "flyers") 20 feet in the air or forming human pyramids have made "knee braces and ice-bags accoutrements as common as mascara" among the US's four million cheerleaders. The US's National Centre for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research reports that, of 104 "catastrophic injuries" sustained by female high-school athletes from 1982 to 2005, more than half were suffered by cheerleaders.
Catastrophic injuries include head and spinal trauma, such as that suffered by Kristi Yamaoka, a southern Illinois cheerleader who last year fell 15ft from the top of a pyramid on to her head but continued to move her arms to "Go, Southern, go" while strapped into a gurney. Southern won 59-46. You go, Kristi!
"It's nonsense to say that cheerleading is any more dangerous than other sports," says Bob Kiralfy, director of the British Association of Cheerleaders, who reports that in the UK at least reported injuries have fallen by 30% despite a 30% growth in the number of cheerleaders in recent years. This is, in part, no doubt, due to the sensible Stunt Safety Code at cheerleading.org.uk, which, among other things, advises: "Check overhead for ceiling height, light fixtures or roof beams." You know, before you twirl that flyer skywards.
In the UK, 17 cheerleading incidents were treated last year. "Six were things like spectators falling on stairs, and only one required a precautionary hospital visit," says Kiralfy. "But 17 is too many, even for a vigorous athletic discipline."
Quite so. What can be done? Perhaps Russell Crowe has the answer. He has just banned cheerleaders at the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby team he co-owns. "We examined game day and wanted to contemporise and make the focus football," he said.
True, Crowe's ban was prompted by complaints about the sexism of scantily clad women shaking their pompoms for male rugby fans, rather than to avert catastrophic cheerleading injuries. But if the Gladiator star's reform was adopted worldwide, cheerleading injuries would fall to zero. You go, Crowe!
