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Community Gymnastics: Kunert set for final act with Poway Gymnastics

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By Michael Bower

Kimberly Kunert has been with Poway Gymnastics for 11 years. But the end is approaching and the 18-year-old is hoping to go out with a bang at the prestigious USA Gymnastics Level 9 Western National Championships, which begin today in Roseville.

Kunert, who will be graduating from Westview High School in June, is the first gymnast out of Poway Gymnastics to qualify for the championships since Brennan Bailes did two years ago.

Kunert needed to finish in the top 12 at the Regional Championships in April to qualify and despite not performing her best in her strongest event — the bars — she delivered season-high scores on the beam and the vault to claim the 12th and final spot.

“I was pretty excited,” said Kunert, who earned a scholarship to the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, where she will continue her gymnastics career. “This is what my goal was, and to know that it wasn’t the end at the regional was a great feeling.”

“I was just overwhelmed with excitement for her,” said Teresa Barnarb, who has helped coach Kunert over the past five years. “I know how hard she has worked and you just can’t take anything for granted in this sport.”

There were roughly 300 other Level-9 gymnasts at the regional qualifier. Kunert will now go up against roughly 47 other gymnasts at the Western National Championships. Her competitors also qualified by finishing in the top 12 in one of the other four regional championships held in the Western United States.

Tony Salmeri, owner of Poway Gymnastics and longtime coach of Kunert, is excited to watch Kunert compete for the final time as a member of Poway Gymnastics. But it will also be an emotional moment for the coach. After all, Kunert is literally the face of Poway Gymnastics.

“It is going to be really hard because she has been with me since she was very little,” he said. “We have an advertisement in the paper and magazines and it has her picture on it. I probably won’t change that when she is gone. She will be on that ad forever.”

Kunert fell in love with gymnastics at the age of 7 and now she is giving back to children at that age through coaching.

“She is one of our best coaches,” Salmeri said. “The parents ask for her all the time, but she is also training so she can only coach one day a week. She will be missed both ways, as an athlete and a staff member.”

Parents requesting Kunert will be happy to know she is considering becoming a gymnastics coach after college.

“I love when the kids get happy and I enjoy watching them learn how to do something,” she said. “It is fun.”

But before college and coaching, Kunert will have her one last hurrah for Poway Gymnastics.

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