Roberson, 18, has followed fellow gymnast and gold medalist Biles for years
Before 18-year-old Joscelyn Roberson earned her spot as a traveling alternate on the 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics team for the Paris Games, she looked up to gold medalist Simone Biles.
Back in April 2015, Roberson’s coach at the time posted a video of the then-9-year-old athlete doing a standing backflip with a twist. The video went viral and Biles, now 27, even reposted it on X (formerly known as Twitter).
“I’m in awe. {perfect}😱😍👯,” Biles wrote in her 2015 post. “Some1 help me find this cutie. I wanna meet her, so she could teach me a thing or two.”
In May 2015, Roberson then posed in front of her G.T. (gifted and talented) independent school research project on Biles in an image shared on Instagram. The project highlighted Biles’ illustrious career up to that point — and Roberson even wore a leotard and a fake medal around her neck for her presentation.
On June 30, Roberson was selected as a traveling replacement athlete for the Paris Games with Leanne Wong after the two-day U.S. Olympic gymnastics team trials.
Roberson will travel and train alongside Biles and their other teammates Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera for her first Olympic Games in Paris.
The young athlete has spoken out about Biles’ influence and mentorship before — and how Biles has taught her about life off the mat as well.
“Getting to see how she works and how she kept herself fresh and able to do gymnastics was really good. I’ll be taking how she goes down and comes back up, and her training, into my own training,” she told International Gymnastics Media in March of what Biles has taught her.
She’s also helped Roberson realize “that gymnastics doesn’t have to be in your life 24/7.” Said the young athlete, “You can shut it off and do something else or talk about something else. I’m sure that, when I was younger, all I did was talk about gymnastics or think about gymnastics, and it really wore me out once I got older. So knowing you can shut that off for a little bit and do anything else other than that.”
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, visit TeamUSA.com. Watch the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, beginning July 26, on NBC and Peacock.
