Boss Athletics to represent Canada at World Pom Championships

Regina’s Boss Athletics Desire Pom Team will represent Team Canada at the 2022 ICU World Cheerleading Championships in Florida.

The team was selected by Cheer Canada after a video submission back in the fall 2021 and is the first performance cheer team from Saskatchewan to ever represent the country.

“It’s kind of like our Olympics, so it is a pretty big deal,” Team Canada member, Samantha Morrow said.

Boss Athletics only found out in January their Pom Team had been selected as Team Canada for the championships, which meant the squad had to make some changes to get ready.

“When we were awarded Team Canada we had to change our music, get new costumes and change up everything. So the past month or so they’ve been putting in a lot of work to change the routine and get it ready,” Co-Coach Dani Anderson said.

The team had to forego their regular pink and black gym colours and will now dawn red and white uniforms with “Canada” across the chest, which means a lot to the athletes.

“Every time I look at this shirt, every time I look at the team and hear the music, you just feel a national pride,” Team Canada member Javin Ames-Sinclair said.

Pom’s popularity is growing in the province and Boss Athletics wanted to get in on the action and began a Worlds Program last year.

“Originally we started as a cheer gym. However both us [the owners] have a dance background so we thought the next logical step was to incorporate Pom and Performance Cheer within the gym to give our athletes more opportunity,” Co-owner of Boss Athletics, Carley Weisbeck said.

Team Canada has never won a World Championship and will compete against 14 other countries this year.

“I can’t wait to be there and watch them live in person and get to see how we stack up against them,” Weisbeck said.

The preliminary round for Canada begins April 21 in DisneyWorld at ESPN Center. If they score in the top 10 the team will compete in the finals on April 22.