CCHS Graduate Chloe Eichenlaub Member of International Cheer Union Championship Winning Team

By Rebecca Maynard

Clarke County High School graduate Chloe Eichenlaub started her cheerleading career at age 5 as a Clarke County Youth Football League cheerleader. Little did she know then that in 2023, she would be a member of the first-place winning Team USA All Girl at the International Cheer Union (ICU) World Cheerleading Championship.

“I fell in love with cheerleading, and then decided to join an all-star cheerleading team,” Eichenlaub said. “My favorite thing was when I got older and helped coach the CCYFL cheer teams. I loved that I could share my passion with future cheerleaders.”

Eichenlaub is now a senior at Morehead State, and her college team, Morehead State All Girl, won College D1 Nationals at the UCA Cheerleading Nationals in January. Her group and the two other Morehead State groups that tried out made Team USA.

“We were so proud that we could represent our college as well as our country,”

Eichenlaub said.

After making Team USA, the team had different challenges every week to send into their coaches, consisting of stunting and tumbling challenges as well as workout challenges. These challenges took the group an average of three nights to complete

— Team USA All Girl gets only 10 days of training to prepare for the competition, Eichenlaub said.

“To put this into perspective, most teams get six months to prepare,” she explained. “Collectively, we all put our skills together and became one of the most consistent teams USA All Girl has ever put together. We had zero deductions for almost all of our full outs. Hitting our routine with zero deductions on Day Two of the competition was one of my greatest achievements. Our team put everything we had into it. I’ll never forget the feeling of the arena chanting “USA” once our music ended, and my team and I crying tears of joy. Our coaches and country had an expectation for us, and we knew we accomplished it!”

“The process my team and I went through for our training was harder than any training I’ve ever experienced,” Eichenlaub said. “We had nightly ice baths at the end of our long practices, and to take our minds off of how cold it was, we would sing the national anthem.

Flashing forward to when they announced the United States as world champions, the country that wins gets to sing their national anthem on the podium. As we were all crying, we all remembered how we sang our national anthem in the ice baths and we realized that all of our hard work, injuries, and time was worth it in the end.”

Ten countries competed in the All Girls Premier Division, and 52 countries competed over the weekend in other divisions. The USA All Girls Premier were also the highest scoring team in the championships, said Chloe’s father, Joe Eichenlaub. “This was an amazing event from opening ceremonies to the closing. We are very proud of Chloe and all that she has accomplished,” Joe said.

Chloe lives in Morehead, Kentucky. She is majoring in elementary education, and hopes to teach at an elementary school and in the evenings coach a high school or All Star cheer team.

“Being a part of Team USA was such an honor,” Eichenlaub said. “I was able to help bring back a World Championship for our country, and all of the hard work my team and I did was for a purpose. This year’s motto was “GOLD”. I am so proud to bring back the gold and to represent my country. The process and the experience it brought with it is something I will never forget!”