Arkansas gymnast Joscelyn Roberson competes on the floor against LSU during a meet on Jan. 24 in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP file photo)

NEW ORLEANS — There was a time, not that long ago really, when Joscelyn Roberson would combat the nerves that inevitably popped up before a major gymnastics meet by reminding herself of one very simple fact.

“I could be like, ‘Oh no one’s watching me,'” the 19-year-old said with a laugh. “Like they’re watching Simone (Biles). They’re watching Jordan (Chiles). They’re watching Suni (Lee) and Jade (Carey). Like, they are not watching me.”

Well, they are now.

Biles, Lee, Carey and Carey are all on sabbatical from elite gymnastics, perhaps for good. And when Roberson salutes the judges during the first night of the U.S. Gymnastics Championships today, the world championship gold medalist and Olympic alternate will be one of the few athletes on the floor with experience on the sport’s biggest stage.

“Maybe they are kind of watching me (now), so it adds a different level of nerves, but I love it,” Roberson said.

Good thing, because she’ll probably have to get used to it. Not just for Roberson, but the athletes who will find the spotlight pointing their way now that the icons who commanded it so completely have stepped aside, at least for now.

A year after sending the oldest team in modern Olympic history to Paris, the average age of the competitors who will spend the weekend at Smoothie King Center taking their first tentative steps toward the 2028 Los Angeles Games is under 18.

Hezley Rivera helped the Americans capture gold last summer. Now, the 17-year-old finds herself thrust into the role as one of the standard bearers for one of the marquee programs of the U.S. Olympic movement, and the external pressure that comes along with it.

“I definitely know that people have certain expectations, but I don’t really care what people have, like, expectations-wise for me,” she said. “I know what I want and my goals, so it’s kind of just focusing on what I’m doing in the gym and what I am doing on the competition floor.”

Rivera’s elite 2025 debut was bumpy. She tied for 12th at the U.S. Classic last month, well behind WOGA club teammate Claire Pease, who showed uncommon poise in her first major competition at the senior level.

Yes, it wasn’t the meet Rivera wanted, but the reality is the year following an Olympics is all about adjusting to the sport’s updated Code of Points and plotting out what the run-up to the next Olympics might look like.

A ‘bittersweet’ departure

Li Li Leung, who nimbly guided USA Gymnastics out of the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, is stepping down at the end of the year. During her final “State of the Sport” address on Wednesday, Leung grew uncharacteristically emotional during what she called a “bittersweet” milestone.

Asked if she’s had any second thoughts since announcing her plan in June, Leung shook her head.

“I’ve accomplished everything that I set out to do when I took this role,” she said. “It takes quite a bit of work to build up to an Olympic Games, and it would be so unfair if I made my decision a couple of years from now and not giving the next CEO the runway to be able to build successfully into LA.”

Hitting reset

That remains true on the floor as well. The faces that defined the U.S.’s lengthy run of dominance — Biles most of all — are taking a well-deserved break. And while the lure of performing in a hometown Games three summers from now may eventually prod some of them back, this year will be about getting a feel for the next generation.

“I really look at this as a rebuilding year and it’s a year of opportunity,” women’s program technical lead Chellsie Memmel said. “Most of our Olympians haven’t returned. And then the few we have are still very young. So it’s really about building an opportunity for the younger ones.”

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