Soka Univerisity students win gold medals at the 2025 International Cheerleading Union World Cheerleading Championships and THE DANCE WORLDS 2025!
Students from our university participated in the 2025 ICU (International Cheer Union) World Cheerleading Championships, held in Florida, USA from April 23rd to April 25th (local time), and THE DANCE WORLDS 2025, held from April 25th to April 28th.
The club team "WORLDWINGS 2WDC," which includes Yoshihiko Niwa (4th year, Faculty of Letters), Aomi Takeuchi (2nd year, Faculty of Nursing), Anna Otani (2nd year, Faculty Faculty of Economics), Ichika Nishida (2nd year, Faculty of Letters Letters), and Sakito Nomura (2nd year, Faculty of Education), participated in the club team competition "THE DANCE WORLDS 2025" (April 25-28, local time), and won the gold medal in the "Open Mixed Hip Hop Division." In addition, the pair of Yoshihiko Niwa (4th year, Faculty of Letters) and Takeshi Shibata (4th year, Faculty of Letters of Letters) won the gold medal in the "Doubles Hip Hop Division" of the performance cheerleading at the "2025 ICU World Cheerleading Championships" (April 23-25), a national team competition, as representatives of Japan. The same team also won the silver medal in the "Hip Hop Division," a team competition consisting of 16 to 24 people.
The International Cheerleading Union (ICU) was organized to promote the worldwide development and spread of the sport of cheerleading and performance cheer, and currently has national federations from 120 countries as members. The World Cheerleading Championships hosted by ICU is an annual official international competition where top cheerleaders from around the world gather to compete against each other in their skills, with over 50 countries and approximately 4,000 participants, making it the largest-scale championship among the world-level competitions for cheerleading and performance cheer.
After the World Championships, Niwa, who won gold medals in the "Open Mixed Hip Hop Division" and "Doubles Hip Hop Division", said, "Thank you very much for the warm support you have given to us, WORLDWINGS 2WDC, for so many years. I am convinced that we were able to achieve the honor of being the best in the world not only because of the strength of our team members, but also because of everyone's support. During the tournament, we continued to challenge ourselves in a situation where we were close to our limits both physically and mentally, but every day, my team members and partners encouraged and supported each other and challenged the world with all our might. I think that the reason we were able to fight as one united toward the final victory, saying "just one more step, just one more step," was because of our caring for our partners and the unity of the team. And ultimately, through this World Championships, I learned deeply about the importance of "winning with your heart". I am truly grateful for the results so far and for the results we have achieved this time. We will continue to challenge the world stage as the representative of Japan, so I would appreciate your continued support."
Shibata, who won the gold medal in the Doubles Hip Hop Division, said, "I would like to thank everyone who always supports us. I am very happy that we were able to get revenge for our loss in the same tournament in April of last year and become world champion. I also feel a strong sense of joy that we were able to repay everyone with this result. We will continue to hone our technical skills, expressiveness, and humanity, and continue to take on the world stage. I would like to ask for your continued enthusiastic support."
You can see the video of the tournament below.
THE DANCE WORLDS 2025 OPEN COED HIPHOP JAPAN
Results of each competition
＜THE DANCE WORLDS 2025＞
Open Mixed-gender Hip Hop Division
1st place WORLDWINGS 2WDC (Japan)
2. Angels Dance Academy Dark Angels (England)
3rd Place: ECU Bailarte Studio (Ecuador)
<2025 ICU World Cheerleading Championships>
Hip Hop
1. United States
2. Japan
3. Thailand
Doubles Hip Hop
1. Japan
2. Thailand
3. China
