SAN JOSE, Calif. — Joscelyn Roberson’s always had her eye on the 2024 Olympics. The math just sort of worked.
The Texan is going to be 18 next summer, an age long considered an athletic sweet spot for elite female gymnasts, at least in the United States.
Each of the six American women to become the Olympic all-around champion — from Mary Lou Retton in 1984 to Simone Biles in 2016 to Sunisa Lee in Tokyo in 2021 — were teenagers when gold medals were placed around their necks.
So yeah, Roberson watched the end of the pandemic-delayed 2020 games and let her mind wander to what may loom for her in Paris. She knew she’d be old enough to compete. She figured a significant portion of the 2020 women’s team would move on to the next phase of their lives, ceding the spotlight to the next wave of elites.
For quadrennium after quadrennium, that’s typically how things worked. Not in 2023.
When Roberson walks onto the floor at the SAP Center on Friday night in the opening round of the U.S. Gymnastics Championships, she will see six of the 10 American women who were in Tokyo — Biles, Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and alternates Leanne Wong and Kayla DiCello — standing alongside her.
All of them will be eyeing their own spot on the five-woman team that will be in Paris next summer.
Suddenly, the vision in Roberson’s head got crowded. A lot more crowded. And while she calls competing against Biles and Lee “surreal,” she’s also well aware it means making it to France or this fall’s world championships in Belgium has become far more difficult.
“I definitely thought, like, it’s going to be harder than I originally thought just because of all of them coming back,” Roberson said. “But I’m definitely excited. The Olympics are going to be fun. Trials are going to be fun.”
Competitive too.
The shorter three-year window between games, the easing of athlete compensation rules by the NCAA and a more athlete-friendly approach to training has created a logjam of sorts.
Before 2021, an Olympic medal-winning gymnast essentially had two options. They could turn professional to cash in on the sponsorship opportunities their newfound fame provided them, or they could retain their amateur status and head to college, where they could get their education paid for while competing less taxing routines before fading into retirement.
Times are changing.
Lee, Chiles and Carey have led the charge of gymnasts who now can compete collegiately while making a little (or more than a little) money on the side. It’s worked out beautifully for all involved. Interest in NCAA women’s gymnastics is soaring and Chiles and Carey’s performance at last year’s world championships offered tangible proof that the college experience can enhance some of their elite skills rather than erode them.
Chiles is 22. Carey is 23. Biles is 26 and will become the oldest woman to win a national title if she can back up her dazzling return at the U.S. Classic earlier this month.
Their presence has eradicated a uniquely American problem. While it’s long been common for gymnasts in other countries to compete well into their 20s, 30s — or in Oksana Chusovitina’s case, beyond — for decades the perception was that by the time a top American gymnast celebrated her 20th birthday, it was over.
