Avant Coeur Hosts Great West Gym Fest with 1,000+ Athletes, 14 Qualify

More than 1,000 athletes descended on The Coeur d’Alene Resort over the weekend of Feb. 20-21, 2026, when Avant Coeur Gymnastics hosted and competed in the Great West Gym Fest. The meet gathered clubs and individual competitors from across the western United States for two days of event competition and sectional-style qualification at the resort venue in downtown Coeur d’Alene.

Avant Coeur served as both host club and competitor, entering squads across multiple age and level brackets and securing 14 athletes who qualified into the meet’s top level. Those 14 qualifiers represent Avant Coeur’s strongest contingent at the Great West Gym Fest, and their advancement came against a field that organizers reported exceeded 1,000 total competitors from neighboring states in the region.

The Great West Gym Fest schedule ran across Feb. 20 and Feb. 21, 2026, with rotating sessions at The Coeur d’Alene Resort set up to accommodate simultaneous competitions for different levels. Hosting the meet placed the resort facilities and tournament infrastructure at the center of the weekend, and the sheer scale of the field required coordination of warm-up times, judging panels, and competition apparatus across both days.

Avant Coeur’s performance, 14 athletes reaching the meet’s top level, marks a measurable outcome for the club’s season entering late February 2026. The results position those athletes for whichever next-stage opportunities the Great West Gym Fest structure provides, and they give Avant Coeur a quantifiable benchmark as the club prepares for the remainder of the competitive calendar.

Local organizers at The Coeur d’Alene Resort and Avant Coeur closed out the two-day event on Feb. 21, 2026, after final rotations and awards. The turnout of more than 1,000 athletes from across the western United States turned the Great West Gym Fest into one of the larger gymnastics gatherings in Kootenai County this winter, and Avant Coeur’s 14 qualifiers provided the club a clear highlight to carry forward into upcoming meets.