I had an amazing experience! I had the chance to attend the OU-Arkansas women’s gymnastics meet at Lloyd Noble on Friday, January 31.
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| University of Oklahoma gymnast getting ready for floor exercise. |
I love OU’s women’s gymnastics, and I was really excited to see that now that we’re in the SEC, we would have a meet against the University of Arkansas where World Cup Floor Ex champion and Olympics alternate, Joscelyn Roberson, is competing. I purchased great seats for myself, Shandell, and little 3-year-old Brielle and 7-year-old Monty, in order to see Joscelyn Roberson in person. What would she be like in person? I’ve certainly seen her in videos, but do they do her justice?
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| Three-year-old aspiring gymnast wearing her OU Sooners leo and dress. |
It was so amazing to see Texarkana born and raised Joscelyn Roberson compete in person. I first became aware of her during the 2023 Pan American Games and also the Cairo World Cup where she earned a Gold in Floor Exercise. Her coaches in Texarkana should receive huge credit for developing such a great athlete and sportsman as well. At any rate, when I first saw her, she was 16, and at 4 ft 8 inches, a little powerhouse. Her music and her tumbling passes were incredible. She did receive criticism for “lack of artistry,” but honestly, I think it’s only because she does not have the sylph-like appearance of a rhythmic gymnast. Also the code of points privileges difficulty, so tumbling passes become superhuman in difficulty, along with floor-based wolf turns. I followed her career with avid interest, really disagreeing with her detractors, and I think they have no idea whatsoever about Joscelyn’s true “provenance.” This is just a theory, but I suspect her tumbling prowess is due to the depth and breadth of tumbling talent and coaching in Texarkana, thanks to Cheer. Texarkana high schools, such as Arkansas High School regularly rank in the top 10 nationally. They are stunning! Granted, their technique is quite different than gymnastics, but many of the tumbling passes require tucks, twists, and more.
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| Joscelyn Roberson (far left) getting ready for vault. |
I was sad to see Joscelyn suffer a serious ankle injury during a warm-up for the vault. She came back, better than ever, and earned a spot as an alternate for the U.S. Olympic Team going to Paris. I was secretly hoping that she would sign a Letter of Intent with the University of Oklahoma. OU has earned a reputation as a team with tremendous concentration, discipline, mental toughness, and consistency. They did not advance to the National Championships last year, but there were injuries, and they were rebuilding. This year, OU’s women gymnasts are ranked #1 in the nation. It was exciting to see Jordan Bowers and Faith Torres (tied for all-around in this meet) along with teammates Lily Pederson, Audrey Davis, Addison Fatta, Danae Fletcher, and more. I am incredibly impressed with OU’s coaching and the support behind the scenes. I used to see the women’s gymnastics team at 6 am at Murray Case Sells doing low-impact cardio in the diving well and it was all I could do to restrain myself from going totally “fan-girl” on them and asking for autographs (on what? My swim cap?). I was a huge fan of the now graduated Ragan Smith, Madison Snook, and many others. One true hero who led Oklahoma to national championships in 2017 and 2018 was Maggie Nichols (who was in the audience!!). Maggie wrote about her experiences in a book. Her courage always stunned me – she was one of the gymnasts who testified against Larry Nassar. In fact, she was “Athlete A,” who was the first to report to U.S. Gymnastics what Nassar had been doing to the gymnasts. That took incalculable courage!! Instead of continuing to pursue elite gymnastics, she chose to go the college route. When she was competing, it was almost unheard of for an elite gymnast to leave their club and to compete in college, where the rules are different, and the routines do not have the same degree of difficulty (or at least, didn’t). This was before Jade Carey and Sunisa Lee broke that mold. Apparently, Joscelyn Roberson is following in the tradition of Jade and Sunisa and is on the U.S. Nationals team. I don’t know about members of the OU gymnastics team.
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| The scoreboard after OU's final rotation on the floor. Their consistency is truly remarkable. |
It was reported that Joscelyn had been battling the flu earlier in the week, but she looked really strong. Her first event was the vault. I could see her on the monitors, and more or less from our seats, but we were next to the floor, and away from the vault. She did not seem to get the distance off the table that she has in the past, and there was a bit of a hop. But – wow – what a difficult vault! She did a twist onto the vault before she blocked with her hands, and her hands where perfectly squared so she was able to push up high and get energy to do even more twists off the table. It was really impressive.
Her floor routine was really interesting to me. She still used the song “Stanga,” which OU gymnast Olivia Trautman had used in the past. Sagi Abitbul & Guy Haliva recorded “Stanga” which has been remixed to infinity. The first time I heard it, I literally had chills. I used to listen to my CD-ROM of the “Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares” on my way to work in Oklahoma City for Kerr-McGee. I would park in the parking lot east of the railroad tracks which is now Bricktown, and be really pumped up by it. I had both collections, Vols, I and II, and just loved them. “Stanga” borrows heavily, and is in my opinion, perfect floor ex music. When I was in gymnastics, I had a routine choreographed to a literal bullfighting music from a record my mom had treasured, and it exuded pure passion as well.
At any rate, Joscelyn is still incorporating “Stanga” (wonderful!). Her routine has changed a bit. Her first tumbling pass was incredibly high and she just totally stuck it. I was a bit surprised because I thought that in college gymnastics you had to step back onto the back foot. Perhaps she did, and I did not notice. It went quickly and that is something I can review in recordings. The biggest change is that she took out the floor wolf turns (no wolf turns on beam, either). She did have a great deal of sass in the dance elements, along with lots of playfulness and gestures to the crowd, encouraging them to pick up the volume of cheering. I was going to say entreat, but it there was definitely a feel of play at work. The coaches at Arkansas are great for her. Jordyn Wieber is their head coach, and she is a champ. She looked very elegant in a white flowing pants suit a drapy jacket (turns out she is expecting), and high heels. OU’s coach was also elegant in black. Joscelyn totally stuck her second pass (which she always did in her elite performances) and the execution elicited gasps of admiration. Her floor flexibility moves were serviceable, but I think they could be more original. Her split leaps have really come a long way, and she has made impressive improvements with turning her feet out and making sure her feet are all the way up. Her final tumbling pass was a triumph. I know I’m a bit at a loss for descriptors – my hands-on gymnastics experience was at a very rudimentary level, although I did take gymnastics classes for years that were offered to children through the City of Norman and OU, and then later, I had gymnastics every day in 9th grade at West. I did not take gymnastics in tenth grade. I’m not sure why. I focused more on swimming.
Joscelyn was her team’s anchor on the beam, and she totally nailed all the skills. She did not have all the different skills that she had in her elite routine (no wolf turns), but she had really complicated combinations, and her dismount was a twisting one, with a blind landing. Dangerous! Her precision and confidence were palpable, and her team cheered her on. She received her team’s highest score on the beam – I think it was a 9.925.
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| Scoreboard after the Arkansas Razorback's rotation. |
The scoring has been really stringent this year, especially after complaints about too many 10.0s and scoring inflation helping certain teams. I guess it’s a good idea to reserve the 10s for the truly remarkable performances, and not succumb to the idea of going to a very complicated code of points that contains multipliers based on degree of difficulty. With such an emphasis on dangerous skills, I’m actually surprised there have not been more tragic accidents. Perhaps there have been, but we are just not hearing about it.
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| Joscelyn Roberson congratulated by fellow Razorback after a great performance on the beam. The atmosphere is truly joyous and supportive. (photo Susan Nash) |
I was expecting to appreciate the meet, but I did not expect to absolutely love it, which I did! Wow. The overall feeling is joyous and participatory, and I think it’s very healthy. It’s a far cry from the gymnastics events I attended in the past where the waves of nervousness combined with parental obsession and coaches’ ambition created something pretty unpleasant. I think I’d prefer electroconvulsive shock therapy to attending one of those kinds of meets. It reminds me of when I swam on the swim team as a 12-year-old and saw a parent spank his little daughters at a swim meet in Enid for not getting their best times. Perhaps his daughters were horsing around and merited some firm talk but that? I was glad my parents did not like attending swim meets. Competing is scary enough – why add aversion therapy??
The meet concluded with a score of 197.828-195.975 as Oklahoma continued its winning streak against ranked opponents and remained the No. 1 program in the nation. The Arkansas team was very impressive, and it is really thrilling to have the chance to see such high-level performances.
