Laura Vikmanis: NFL’s Oldest Cheerleader at 42

By Sunday night we’ll know the two teams who will have the honor of competing in this year’s Super Bowl. And neither one of them will be the Cincinnati Bengals. They had a pretty bad season and came nowhere close to even making the playoffs.But that didn’t mean that the Bengals didn’t put a remarkable product on the field. Because they did. Only it wasn’t their football team. It was their cheerleaders, the Ben-Gals. (Get it? Bengals and…oh never mind.) The most remarkable thing about the Ben-Gals? A 42-year-old mother of two.
A few years back, Laura Vikmanis attended a Cincinnati Bengals game and was mesmerized by the cheerleaders who adorned the sideline, so much so that she decided she wanted to become one. Only one problem. As a busy mom of two, she wasn’t exactly in the best shape of her life. So she worked out hard and tried out for the team when she was 39. She admitted to being intimidated. After all, she was 20 years older than many of the young ladies she was competing against. Though she made it all the way through to the tryout finals, she came up a bit short and didn’t make the squad.
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