Roberts began riding BMX at age 9.[1] Roberts entered her first international BMX competition in 2012.[1]
Career
Urban World Championships
In 2017, Roberts competed in Chengdu, China at the UCI Urban Cycling World Championships where she won gold and became world champion.[2][3] After earning bronze in 2018, Roberts won her second BMX world title in 2019[4] and a third world title in 2021.[5] She went on two win two more gold medals in 2022 and 2023, thus becoming a five-time BMX Freestyle Park world champion.[6] As of 2024, no other woman has won more than one world title in this event.
2020 Olympics
Roberts became the first American to qualify in BMX freestyle for the 2020 Summer Olympics, the first Olympics the event was included.[4] Going into the event, Roberts was seeded first and was a favorite to win.[7] She had the highest score in the first round with a score of 96.10. For her second run, she needed to improve to a score of 97.50 to win gold, but after a poor landing, she stopped the run and received a silver medal.[8][9]
2024 Olympics
In June 2024 Roberts qualified for her second Olympics by winning Olympic Qualifier Series held in Shanghai and Budapest. She was once again considered as one of the favorites to win gold in BMX Freestyle Park.[10] On the first day of competition in Paris Roberts captured the first place in qualification round and advanced to the final.
During the warmup before the final Roberts collided with CzechIveta Miculyčová and grabbed her right shoulder. In her first final run she crashed on a front flip and put her foot down on the landing soon after she started the second run. Roberts eventually finished the competition 8th[11]
Roberts is openly a member of the LGBT community.[12] In a 2021 interview, she identified as queer. Roberts was once married to a woman, but they separated in 2022; Roberts stated in a 2024 interview that personal difficulties related to the divorce had a negative impact on her performance in athletic events for two years, as administrative responsibilities related to the split were time-consuming: "I was going through a divorce the end of 2022, and it led to a lot of 2023 just dividing certain things. We had dogs and stuff that we had to split, and that was hard. We had other financial things to figure out. And I was dealing with all of that almost every time that I was off the bike. . . . there was a lot less time spent on my bike because I was trying to get everything figured out."[13][14]
