There is often controversy over whether dance, cheerleading, or gymnastics are considered sports due to their artistic-based focus and lack of scoring-based action. of competitive structure However, dance, cheerleading, and gymnastics should be recognized as legitimate sports due to their rigorous physical demands, and the high level of skill and athleticism required.

Firstly, sports like gymnastics and cheerleading have rigorous physical demands. For example, gymnastics requires one to have extreme dexterity as several routines contain flips. Additionally, cheerleading is not much easier either; for example, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders practice 2-5 times a week, for over 3 hours each day (dallascowboyscheerleaders.com). Some cheers require humans to stack on top of each other, which requires lots of strength to hold that many people on your shoulders.

Also, dance, cheerleading, and gymnastics require a high level of skill and athleticism. In dance, dancers must learn synchronized movements, follow rhythms, and perform complex dance moves. That is only possible with years of training and talent. In cheerleading, to be able to stand at the top of a human pyramid takes lots of balance and bravery. This is usually done with a high level of skill and knowledge of cheers as cheerleaders must know what to do when. In gymnastics, Gymnastics is a sport filled with flips, handsprings and rope-swinging. Gymnasts practice for years to perfect these motions.

Although people do not think dance, cheerleading, and gymnastics should be sports, many people do. Some of these sports are in the Olympics and many people pay money to watch them; for example, almost 35 million people watched gymnastics on the day of the Olympic’s Women’s Gymnastics Team Final (NBC News). Not all sports were made for brute force after all.