FARMINGTON — Jessie Bates has an incurable habit of kicking.
Jessie, formerly of Shiprock, picked up taekwondo a decade ago and 5,000 miles from home. The 15-year-old was named Friday as a member of the Youth Olympic Games Team after trials in Colorado.
Jessie, one of six youths in the nation to earn the distinction, will represent the United States in March, when she contends for a spot at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games.
She competed against six female athletes in her weight bracket Friday. About 60 youths gathered in Colorado last week to vie for a place on the team.
"It was incredible, it was just like a dream come true," Jessie said. "In the past, I would always come up short. I would be second place, third place, it was always just beyond my reach. On Friday, it was just my day, finally."
Olympic taekwondo is a sport in which two contenders score points by kicking to the chest or head areas. An athlete earns one point for a kick to the chest and three points for the head.
Jessie started learning the Korean martial art in England when her mother, Lynette Bates, who serves in the Air Force, was stationed there.
Then 5, Jessie was outside a taekwondo studio when she caught her first glimpse of the sport. She watched through the window as students kicked each other, and she was hooked within minutes, she said. Jessie's mother signed her up for classes, and the athlete has practiced roughly six days per week ever since.
She trained four hours
"I'm excited and very happy about her participation and her drive," Lynette said of her daughter. "She started when she was 5, and she trained two hours a day, six days a week. We thought she'd burn out or get distracted, but she was always wanting to go train, to do better. It was always just out of her reach, but this time she won, hands-down."
Lynette and husband, Chee Bates, grew up in the Four Corners area, and both graduated from Aztec High School. While Lynette pursued a career in the military and traveled the world with her family, relatives at home watched from a distance as Jessie sparred her way to the top.
"Like every grandfather, when their grandchildren do great, you're overwhelmed with being proud," said LoRenzo Bates, of Upper Fruitland. LoRenzo is Jessie's grandfather and a delegate to the Navajo Tribal Council.
"She was doing this since she was a little girl," LoRenzo said. "You can always see in someone when they have a skill, a talent, and she just got better and better. It was just a matter of time until she would be able to succeed and get to where she's at."
The journey to the top is not without sacrifices, however. Jessie gave up other sports and activities to focus on taekwondo.
"It took a lot of sacrifices," Lynette said. "Because of how good she was getting at Taekwondo, she had to give up other things."
The sacrifices were worth it, said Jessie, who said making the youth Olympic team means she's "the best in the nation." But the honor is worth more than the title, she said.
"It's about the excitement in the game," she said. "You just go in and fight, and whoever kicks the hardest makes the statement in the ring. It's great."
Lynette, who is stationed in Redondo Beach, Calif., said her daughter's enthusiasm has moved the entire family. Lynette and Chee both are training in the sport.
"We figured when we were stationed in Albuquerque that we might as well sign up for classes," she said. "It's really become a family affair."
While in Albuquerque, the family trained under Chris Ballard, head instructor at Champion Taekwondo.
Ballard remembers Jessie as a "two-percenter."
"Ninety-eight percent of people just do enough to get by," he said. "Jessie was not one of those. She was a two-percenter. She was always working hard, always pushing it, always wanting to be the best."
Jessie earned her first black belt at age 10, Ballard said, and he was not surprised to learn she made the youth Olympic team.
"I absolutely saw her getting this far," he said. "She was talented, but talent is never enough. She had the drive, she chose to work hard."
Jessie, a sophomore in high school, has aspirations to compete on the regular Olympic team.
If that dream is realized, Jessie will fight in the 2012 Olympics in London.
Alysa Landry:
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