Joscelyn Roberson Opens Up About Her Transfer to Georgia

From shocking coaching changes to major athletes entering the transfer portal, the 2026 NCAA offseason has been one to remember. Quite possibly the biggest piece of offseason news came from World Champion Joscelyn Roberson. After two trailblazing seasons at the University of Arkansas, Roberson transferred to Georgia for her final two years of eligibility. 

As a Razorback, Roberson earned 23 scores of 9.900 or better. Following her freshman year, she returned to Elite gymnastics, joining the short list of U.S. gymnasts who balance both NCAA and Elite competition. Roberson finished third in the All-Around and second on floor at the 2025 Xfinity U.S. Championships before winning a bronze medal on vault at the World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia. In her sophomore campaign, she earned 10 scores of 9.950 or better on beam and 11 scores of 9.900 or better on floor. She also created history becoming the first NCAA gymnast to compete a Mustafina on vault leading the Razorbacks back to the NCAA Championships. 

Following the NCAA Championships, Roberson entered the transfer portal. The news came just prior to Razorback head coach Jordyn Wieber announcing that she would step down from her position. “My decision comes from a place of love for all of you and respect for the University of Arkansas. Getting to know and be coached by Jordyn, Chris, Kyla, and Catelyn has been an absolute dream come true,” Roberson said in her transfer announcement. 

Following the 2026 season, Georgia Head Coach Cécile Canqueteau-Landi hired her husband Laurent Landi as an Associate Head Coach and Megan Haught and Brenna Brooks as assistant coaches.

Enjoying Every Aspect 

Roberson has always been a person who embodies joy in and outside of the gym. Roberson spent 2022-2024 training at World Champions Centre with Simone Biles and many other of the country’s greatest gymnasts. There was never a dull moment during her time in Spring, Texas. Whether she was in the gym training, spending time hanging out with all of her teammates, or traveling the world representing Team USA, she loved every aspect of her life. When Roberson moved to Arkansas for college in the fall of 2024, she started to lose a part of herself. She lost the version of herself that was a social butterfly, always having an activity to keep her busy and enjoying life even on her most difficult days in the gym. Most importantly, she began to lose her happiness. 

 “I’m the most social human being you’ll ever meet,” Roberson said. “I love going out, meeting people, and here I changed and I became someone who was always at home and I hate that.” 

At the beginning of the 2026 season, Roberson sat down and really thought about her experience at Arkansas. She loved her coaches, the school, and bonding as a team, but was not feeling like Joscelyn. She told herself that she was just being dramatic when she considered transferring and that there was no reason to leave Fayetteville. She instantly finds joy in the gym, her love for her sport outweighs any negative feelings, but how did she feel when she was not flipping? Eventually, she came to the conclusion that her happiness was of utmost importance. 

“I just wasn’t happy here, so I decided I have to tell them I’m gonna leave, because my happiness is worth more than anything else. That was the biggest reason I decided to transfer, and that’s why everybody’s freaking out saying, ‘Oh, you were going to Georgia from the jump, but I really wasn’t. I really wasn’t, because while I love Cécile[Landi] and Laurent [Landi], and they’re awesome and amazing, and I can’t wait to be coached by them again, they were not the deciding factor for me to transfer. The deciding factor was I wasn’t happy here, and I wanted to go somewhere where I felt like I would be happy.”

On The Road Again

After Roberson entered the portal on April 27, she immediately began taking recruiting trips. Many fans speculated that Roberson was only in the portal to reunite with the Landis in Georgia, her former Elite coaches. However, Roberson was not set on Georgia when she first entered the portal and wanted to explore every option available. She had a set criteria that each school had to achieve: strong academics, preexisting relationships from athletes and coaches on the team, and a school that would assist her in achieving her Elite gymnastics goals, such as competing at the LA 2028 Olympic Games. 

This criteria left her with five options: Georgia, UCLA, LSU, Florida, and Utah. She did not schedule a visit with Utah due to the distance of school and the lack of personal friendships on the team. She did schedule a trip to the other four schools but did not end up visiting LSU mostly due to her Elite gymnastic goals. While the Tigers would have supported Roberson in any avenue she chose, she felt training Elite at LSU would have been extremely self-driven. 

“I personally didn’t feel as secure in my elite career had I gone there,” Roberson said. “I just would have had to decide if that was a school I really wanted to go to, was I willing to maybe give up my Elite gymnastics goals a little bit, not that they weren’t going to support them. Elite gymnastics is hard, so I need someone to be there and support me and get me through those hard days. I felt like at LSU it was going to be really self-driven.”

Roberson landed on visiting Florida, UCLA, and Georgia. Each school provided her with an opportunity to continue training Elite gymnastics at the highest level, while achieving her NCAA and academic goals. Despite eventually committing to Georgia, Roberson originally had some reservations about the school. Roberson is pre-med majoring in exercise science, with the goal of eventually going to medical school. When she visited Georgia, she was concerned that they did not have a medical school on campus. 

“I told all the coaches, wherever I end up, I want to be there for a while,” Roberson said. “If I end up going to medical school, I want to go to that same medical school, so I was really bummed that Georgia didn’t have that. Their medical school is way off somewhere else, so I’d have to move again in two years. I’ve been moving a lot recently, I kind of want to just settle down and chill. I am talking about medical school, and wanting to go to medical school, and someone’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re opening one on campus this year!”

Roberson entered her official visits with many friends on each of the three teams. In Georgia, she was excited to reconnect with Brooke Pierson and Autumn Reingold who trained alongside her at WCC. Neither gymnast was present during Roberson’s visit giving her the opportunity to connect with her other future teammates. 

“I got to meet like three or four of the other girls, and we just clicked really, really well, right off the bat,” Roberson said. “This is a good fit for me, and I’m so excited.” 

Roberson had the unique experience of returning to recruiting visits with a different perspective. She entered each trip knowing exactly what she wanted to see from each school and was directing the trip this time around. 

“I know that schools can put on this big show, but I want to try to get under that and see what the actual school is like,” she said about her recruiting trips. “I think that was important for me to ask those questions, and I think it’s so hard for a sophomore in high school to even remotely know what a school is supposed to look like. So any school to them is going to look great and fantastic.”

LA On Her Mind

Roberson’s goal was to find a school that could help her continue to find success in college gymnastics but also present her with the best path to the LA 2028 Olympics. As excited as she is to be training with the Landis again, she may be more elated to just be able to communicate with the legendary duo. 

“Not getting to talk to Cécile was so hard,” Roberson explained. “The transition to college is hard, and a lot of gymnasts will reach out to their club coaches and just talk. I couldn’t do that because she was a college coach, so it was hard, and just getting to catch up with her, it was so amazing. We’ve built the relationship and we just have just time under our belt, so it was like nothing had really changed.” 

Throughout her 2025 Elite run, Roberson attempted to copy the training regimen she was presented with at WCC. However, it was more self-motivated.

“There are days where you come in and you’re like, ‘Do I really have to do that?’ “I think it’s gonna be good that I won’t have to worry about my training plan,” she said. She is excited to return to the Landis and let them take over her daily schedule and routine construction.

Roberson is taking a different approach to the 2026 Elite season. She plans to take the year off from competing, while letting multiple small injuries heal, including an injury sustained during podium training at the NCAA Championships in April. A trip during her leap series caused her to compete with two bruised metatarsals. 

“I literally didn’t have a foot, like my entire foot, it was so swollen, and it was black,” Roberson said. 

She has not completely closed the door on competing at the 2026 Xfinity U.S. Championships, but is looking to focus on her health and being ready for 2027 and 2028. 

“If I decide I want to go to championships, it is far enough away I feel like I could get there, but I don’t want to rush anything, and I really want to be healthy for the next two years, but 27 is the big goal, make that worlds team, and then obviously 2028.”

Despite potentially not competing during the Elite season, she fully plans on training her difficult skills and getting those challenging routines back during the NCAA offseason. What skills is she most looking forward to training again? Everything. 

“Everything, everything. I just play gymnastics. I do hard, hard gymnastics. I love NCAA because it’s fun, and I get to interact with the fans more often, but the routines can get repetitive just because you’re doing them all season and you’re trying to perfect them. I think just getting in the gym and playing around with hard gymnastics and seeing what I can do, I think that’s the goal.”

Athens Ready

Roberson can feel the support in her decisions from her family, friends, and many of her teammates, including gymnastic legend Simone Biles. The two formed a close bond in their nearly two years training together prior to the Paris Olympic Games. Biles frequently called Roberson throughout her transfer process to just catch up and talk about her decision. “The gang is back together again,” Biles commented on Roberson’s commitment post. 

“It’s just so cute that she likes keeping up with me, and I’m really excited and grateful that they’re all supporting me. Obviously, Zoe [Miller], she’s always gonna be in my corner. So I’m just so grateful for all of them, and it’s just so cool that we built in only like a year and a half, but it was such a close bond, and I’ll cherish them forever, and we still talk at least every week, but definitely most of the time it’s more than that.”

Roberson is joining a Georgia team that excelled in the 2026 season. The GymDogs finished sixth at the NCAA Championships, and with the addition of Roberson, adding Laurent Landi to the coaching roster, and other strong freshmen, the future is even brighter. 

“I’m just really excited to see how Laurent goes in NCAA, because everybody says he’s not meant for NCAA, but he’s the funniest human being, and he is going to be so amazing, I’m so excited, and he just loves gymnastics. He’s very passionate about it.”

Photos By: Lloyd Smith and Ricardo Bufolin for Inside Gymnastics/Georgia Gymnastics