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When Loghan Sculthorpe first tried cheerleading with his nine-year-old twin sister he didn't expect it would lead him to compete on the international stage.
Loghan, now 13, is preparing to travel to Florida in April for the World Cheerleading Championships.
He was one of 30 children to make the Australian cheerleading team for his age group out of the 300 athletes who auditioned.
He said one of the best things about making the world championships' team was being able to show that cheerleaders were not only female.
"I have been the only boy in the teams [until now] which has been a bit upsetting," Loghan said.
"But now in Team Australia there is another boy in the team, so I finally get to cheer with another boy at my level.
"In my opinion, I don't think [cheerleading is] meant just for females.
"It's meant for both genders."
Krystle Day from Australian Cheer union said the sport of cheer and dance has seen a rapid growth across the last five years, with COVID having little impact on participation numbers.
She said the ratio of male to female athletes was generally lower in the younger age groups, most likely because parents still saw cheerleading as a girls sport, but that changed in the higher levels.
As he practised his hand-springs, walk-overs, and flips on an air mat in his front yard in Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid north coast, Loghan said the sport had changed his life for the better.
"Cheerleading has helped me a lot because I'm doing what I like. It gives me purpose and something to focus on," he said.
His mother Laura Davey said the discipline and focus needed for cheer had helped with the management of Loghan's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
"In the last six to 12 months, because he was training nine hours a week, we've been able to pull him off the Ritalin and now he just takes the melatonin at night time," she said.
Loghan's sister has since given up cheerleading and Ms Davey said it had been a surprise to see her son embrace the sport.
"If you told me back then that he'd be my cheerleader in the family I wouldn't have believed you, but it really was the best thing that ever could have happened to him," she said.
A single mum of three, Ms Davey has been making a 170-kilometre round trip to Taree three times a week and will soon be juggling a five-hour round trip to Newcastle twice a week for training.
"Loghan has put in a lot of hours, a lot of training, a lot of hard work," Ms Davey said.
"I've never seen a kid his age be so dedicated to something that he loves, I'm so proud of him."
Cheer coach Hannah Burley said she had seen Loghan excel while she worked with him over the past couple of years from a gym in Taree.
"He is unstoppable. He's one of the most improved kids I've ever had," she said.
"He's gone from this shy, little kid and used his passion for the sport to grow into a strong athlete for his age.
"Once he put his mind to it he worked really hard to make the world team and did whatever it took to achieve his goal."
Ms Davey said her son had "big dreams".
"At the moment he is a level three athlete and cheer goes up to level seven," she said.
She said he was aiming to apply for an exchange program to cheer with a team in Canada when he turned 17.
"[But] when when he gets back he wants to just do it for fun because he wants to do marine sciences and eventually breed tropical fish," Ms Davey said.
For now, his focus is the International Cheer Union World Cheerleading Championships, which will be attended by 117 countries.
The competition will be Loghan's first time overseas and he said he wanted to make the most of the opportunity.
He also encouraged other boys to get into cheer.
"It's very fun and you get to learn a whole lot of tricks — and you can go down to the beach and impress people," he said.
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