Timberline’s Kourtney Belarde Focused on 4th Return to State Gymnastics Meet

high school gymnastics
Kourtney Belarde has been participating in gymnastics since she was five.
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By Gail Wood

les schwabIt’s not that Kourtney Belarde isn’t ambitious.

The Timberline High School senior is an A student, she’s in her second year of the Running Start program at South Puget Sound Community College, and she works at Brewery City Pizza a couple of days a week. Oh yeah, she’s also hoping to make it to state in gymnastics for the fourth straight year, a feat that has never been done at Timberline before.

high school gymnastics
Timberline’s Kourtney Belarde is hoping to become the first at her school to qualify for state in gymnastics four straight years.

She’s driven and self-motivated. But she doesn’t get so caught up with her own goals and isn’t so single minded that she forgets her teammates. At times, she’s like another coach on the mat, helping a teammate.

“She helps a lot,” said Shannon Brigham, Timberline’s gymnastics coach. “Right now, we have a lot of newcomers who have never done gymnastics before. She helps them, shows them how to do things.”

At times, Belarde will even help teammates choreograph their routines. She also spots them and shows them different techniques. At a recent practice, one of the girls hadn’t gotten her floor routine down yet – Belarde spent nearly 45 minutes helping her.

“She shows them what they’re doing wrong or how they could get better and improve,” Brigham said. “As a coach, it’s nice to have an extra person around to help like that.”

Belarde got an early start in gymnastics. She was just five when she went to her first gymnastics practice. From her first cartwheel, Belarde was hooked. But her mom had other ideas.

“She wanted me to be this soccer star,” Belarde said with a chuckle. “And I hated soccer. But my mom put me into soccer. She put me into baseball. She put me into ballet. She put me into dance. I hated all of them. I only liked to go to gymnastics. I always did cartwheels when I was little. That’s was something I was interested in.”

high school gymnastics
Kourtney Belarde has been participating in gymnastics since she was five.

Belarde is well aware of the risks of her sport. In seventh grade she broke her wrist when she fell doing a flip on the high beam while turning out on a club team. But today, when Belarde does her dismount on the beam – a back half – she doesn’t think about falling.

“I don’t even think about it anymore,” Belarde said. “I don’t think about anything. I just do it. I don’t have to think do this, do that. I’ve done it enough times, not so it’s easy. Some days are tougher than others.”

Her favorite of the four events in gymnastics is the high beam. Last year when she again advanced to state in all four events, she advanced to the final round on the beam and placed in the top 20. As a sophomore, she finished in the top 20 in floor exercise.

“I don’t know why I like the beam, I just like it,” Belarde said. “It comes pretty easy for me. I like to compete on floor, too. It’s a challenge.”

Four years ago, Belarde had to make a tough decision. Since her club gymnastics team doesn’t allow participants to turn out for their high school team, she had to make a decision. She picked her school team, which is a combination of River Ridge, North Thurston and Timberline high schools and coached by Brigham.

high school gymnastics
Besides gymnastics, Kourtney Belarde is also in the Running Start program, taking classes at South Puget Sound Community College.

“She’s very artistic with her ability,” Brigham said. “She’s one of those girls who looks cute. She looks like a gymnast. She’s just fun to watch. Her skill level is where it’s supposed to be. She’s very graceful.”

Belarde, who is 5 feettall, looks especially graceful on the most challenging of the events – the high beam.

“She looks good up there on the beam,” Brigham said. “She hardly ever wiggles or bobbles. It’s like she’s walking on the ground up on the beam.”

Belarde isn’t turning out for club gymnastics anymore. But she does workouts on her own, once a week during the season and twice a week for four-hour sessions in the off season. She squeezes in her extra workout during the season on Thursdays, which means she’s in the gym from 3:30 to 9:30 p.m..

“It’s the longest day of my life,” Belarde said with a chuckle.

Belarde’s challenge to return to state will be tougher this year. That’s because Timberline was bumped up to 4A from 3A. Brigham said there’s more talent in the 4A and this year there are fewer state qualifiers. To help, Belarde worked on her bar routine and added more difficulty to her routines.

“I can almost bet she’ll make it,” Brigham said. “Her goal is to make it into the finals. Last year she did it in beam at state. That’s her goal this year.”

 

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