U.S. gymnast Joscelyn Roberson: A change of scenery made all the difference
Change came for U.S. gymnast **Joscelyn Roberson’**s life and she grabbed it by the horns.
Following the 2022 U.S. championships - where the Texarkana, Texas-native finished 18th in the all-around in her first season as a senior - Roberson’s family was on the move.
Her mom, Ashley, had secured a new job in Houston, and for Joscelyn that meant one thing: a chance to train alongside Simone Biles with hall of fame coaches Cecile and Laurent Landi at World Champions Centre (WCC).
“The move to WCC was like, ‘If I'm going to move anywhere, it's going to be there. I'm not going to move anywhere else,’” Roberson said during USA Gymnastics’ women’s media day in February. “So, I told my parents that very strongly, like I'm not moving anywhere else other than WCC. So, you better figure it out.
“I didn’t demand to move,” she added later. “They were demanding me to move. And I was like, okay, so if you're going to move me, this is where I'm going.”
Though the move was spurred on by her mom’s change in employment, Roberson admits she felt like she had stagnated in her previous training.
“Honestly, I moved because my mom got a new job, but also [because of] the gymnastics,” she admits. “I just felt like I wasn't getting better and I had more potential than I thought that I was pursuing. I feel like I could have gotten a lot better and I just wasn't getting there.
“[Cecile and Laurent] have given me so much confidence,” Roberson said. “I feel like that’s the biggest thing. Obviously, they’re so knowledgeable in gymnastics and how it works… but just knowing that they knew I could do it and they believed that I could do it, it just gave me a difference sense of confidence that I hadn’t had before.”
A year of experience and growth
Roberson’s vision paid off – and quickly.
Before the end of May 2023, less than 10 months after her move to WCC, Roberson had been on an international tear.
First, at the DTB Pokal Team Challenge in Stuttgart, Germany, she was part of the gold medal-winning U.S. squad and claimed individual gold on the vault and silver on the floor exercise.
She picked up three medals – floor and vault golds and balance beam silver – at the Cairo World Cup a month later.
Then, at the Senior Pan American Championships in Medellin, Colombia, Roberson again helped Team USA to the title before winning floor gold, and vault and beam silvers.
“I am so much more experienced. I have so much more confidence in my gymnastics,” Roberson said of what her early 2023 campaign showed her.
She wrapped up the year with a seventh-place finish at the U.S. nationals. Weeks later she was named to the U.S. squad for the World Championships.
Roberson’s first hiccup of 2023 came at those Worlds in Antwerp, Belgium, when, during the one-touch warmup for the women’s team final, she came up short on a Cheng vault and had to withdraw from the event.
Roberson: “I’m fully back now”
Despite the setback, Roberson told reporters in February she was feeling good.
“It’s going really well, actually,” she explained. “I did my last skill to get my full skill set back… so I’m fully back now and just training and getting better and more consistent.”
Roberson made her return to competition at the end of April, performing on the balance beam and uneven bars.
All that experience from last season has fueled a self-belief in the 18-year-old that is helping her as she works back into form – especially making it to the Worlds, no matter the injury.
“The main thing I took away is that I was good enough to do it and that I was supposed to be there,” Roberson said. “I worked hard enough to get there because a year before, there was no way I was even close to that. I wasn’t even in the picture.
“So going from not even in the picture to on the team,” she continued, “it really showed me how hard I could work and how good of a gymnast I could be.”
With three meets to go until the U.S. squad for Paris is announced on 30 June at the Olympic trials in Minneapolis, Roberson is keenly aware of what the picture looks like to make the team once again.
“It’s going to be insanely hard,” she says bluntly. “There’s so much talent this year and so much competitiveness within the U.S. team.”
With that in mind, Roberson, who says she’s thought about continuing to puruse elite gymnastics while she competes collegiately for the University of Arkansas, is trying to take the pressure off.
“I feel like I’m not going to take it too serious,” she says of the 2024 selection process. “I’m just going to try my best. If it happens, that’s going to be a dream come true. But if it doesn’t, then I’ll just move on, keep working and keep moving on.”
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