Joscelyn Roberson made her feelings known about overcoming anxiety during her vault performance at the 2025 World Championships. The event took place in October in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Roberson delivered a significant performance in the vault exercise and earned a bronze medal for her team. She executed a perfect ‘Mustafina’ and landed cleanly with a small hop forward. The Arkansas Razorback gymnast executed her second vault and registered a combined score of 13.983, which led to her winning the bronze medal. However, this wasn’t easy for her, as she fought anxiety and pressure ahead of her performance.
She felt all the emotions from the 2023 World Championships, where she made the women’s vault finals for the first time. However, during the warm-up for the final, she sustained a season-ending injury. Reflecting on how she battled the anxiety and the emotions of 2023, she opened up about how she felt during the 2025 vault in a recent conversation with GymNicetics with Joy.
“I was like, I started freaking out of that, because I literally looked at him, and I’m like, ‘I’m not OK. Like this is not gonna be good. And he was like, you’re OK. Just breathe. Just breathe. Because, like, all of this was for me. Because in qualifications, he told me he was like, it’s not worth it. Let’s just go home, get better. And I was like, no, I have to try like that. I know I can make this, like I have to try. And so when I get to the final and I’m like freaking out because like I don’t, it’s just like all the emotions of 2023 came rushing back, like the fast motion, like the craziness. It was just a lot for me mentally and I knew it was going to be, but it’s just so hard,” said Joscelyn Roberson.
She added:
“Like, it’s going to hit you, but you don’t know when. And of course it’s going to hit me right before I’m supposed to go up and vault. And I’m like, I can’t do this. And he’s like, no, no, calm down. You’re OK. You warmed them up, they’re fine. You’re going to be OK. And I was like, OK, OK. So then I like took a deep breath and I was like, you know what? We’re going to use all these nerves and anxiety and we’re going to use it to vault.”
After her World Championships appearance, she penned an emotional message, thanking her team for their constant support.
Joscelyn Roberson About Representing Team USA at The 2025 World Championships
Following the 2025 World Gymnastics Championships, the Arkansas Razorbacks posted a video of Joscelyn Roberson on their Instagram handle. Here, the gymnast made her feelings known about representing Team USA at the World Championships. She said that with the eyes of a global audience on the athletes, it is a ‘different level of pressure.’
“When you compete for Team USA, it’s on such a bigger scale. The entire country is watching you. It’s just a different level of pressure, I feel like. I take wearing anything on my back with so much pride and honor, and I just think it’s so important to represent whatever you’re representing as best as you can,” said Joscelyn Roberson.
In 2025, Roberson represented the Arkansas Razorbacks for the first time at the NCAA Championships. It was an average year for her, as her best performances were in the individual all-around event and balance beam. She was ranked 13th in both events.
Joscelyn Roberson also competed in the US National Championships last year. Here, she won a bronze medal in the women’s individual all-around. She also nabbed a silver medal in the floor exercise.
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