What Is Synchronisation in Cheer Scoring?

Quick answer: synchronisation is how precisely a team performs skills together - matching timing, matching body positions and matching technique across every athlete at once - and is one of the most consistently visible things judges assess.

What the Term Means

Cheer is a team sport performed in close visual unison. Synchronisation measures how well the whole team - or, in stunts, each individual stunt group - matches timing and shape, whether in jumps, motions, tumbling or stunts.

How It Affects a Routine

Even technically excellent individual skills can score poorly if the team isn't synchronised - a toe touch landed a fraction of a second apart across the team reads as a visible error, regardless of how good any single athlete's jump was.

What Judges Evaluate

Judges typically watch for matching height, matching body shape, and matching timing across jumps, motions, tumbling passes and stunt groups, both within small groups and across the team as a whole.

Common Examples

A jump sequence where most of the team lands together but one or two athletes are visibly early or late is a common synchronisation issue, as is a tumbling pass where athletes don't move through the pass at matching speed.

Scoring-System Differences

How heavily synchronisation is weighted, and whether it's scored as part of execution or as its own separate category, varies between governing bodies and competition providers.

Related Terms

See Execution, which synchronisation is closely tied to, and the scoring overview for how it fits into the bigger picture.