Jul 8th 2008 12:25PM by Michael David Smith (author feed)
Filed under: Patriots, Boston, Beijing, USAThe New England Patriots are exporting the all-American art of cheerleading to China, where 200,000 people have volunteered to learn how to cheer at the Summer Olympics.

Cheerleading is foreign to China, so very few of those 200,000 volunteers have any experience. But the Chinese wanted to institute cheerleading as part of the Games, and Patriots owner Bob Kraft is a longtime proponent of exporting American football to China, so he spearheaded the effort to send the women who work as Patriots cheerleaders to Beijing to give cheerleading lessons.

Of those 200,000 volunteer cheerleaders, Olympics organizers have chosen 400 to be part of an elite group that will put on special performances. Patriots cheerleader Carrie Binette, who is working with those 400, told the Christian Science Monitor that the Patriots cheerleaders are teaching “how to entertain a wide crowd,” and that the most important things are not dancing ability but “spirit” and “poisemanship.”

Says a Chinese cheerleader named He He, “Everyone knows cheerleading is a Western activity, but we hope we can find a Chinese way to do it [and] show the world.”