After Struggling on Beams, Suni Lee’s Teammate Sophia Groth Opens Up on the Mental Toll of Gymnastics

Auburn junior all-rounder Sophia Groth is one of the decorated college gymnasts. Achieving the 2023 SEC Academic Honor Roll, she won a million hearts after breaking 197 for the first time this season. However, Suni Lee’s teammate, Groth, could not do enough as she dropped home opener to Kentucky. Even after falling off the beams and missing a connection on bars at Arkansas, Groth showed resiliency in taking on the situation with her bewitching smile.

After earning the best season of 39.475 at Alabama, an Auburn gymnast is now making headlines for her recent video. She takes to explain the psychological aspects of gymnastics after struggling in Arkansas.

Sophia Groth puts forth the importance of a smile

Sports editor @oanow, Justin Lee, recently shared the video of 2022 WCGA Scholastic All-American, Sophia Groth on his X handle. The caption reads “When you get a chance, listen to Sophia Groth’s approach to the mental side of gymnastics after two mistakes at Arkansas.” In the video, the young prodigy, Sophia speaks up about how she is handling those disappointments like a leader. She approached the conference with a simple mindset with a dash of smile as she added, “Flips are cool, and leotards are fun.” However, the sport can be hard at times.

Facing the glares of that hardness, the gymnast had a difficult last week. However, Auburn junior all-rounder Sophia Groth reveals in the video that adopting simple fundamentals is her go-to strategy. “Sometimes I just need to go out there, smile and do flips in a sparkly leotard. That’s when I reach my peak performance is when I take a distracted type of focus,” she said. She revealed another interesting approach to keep her focused.

Groth tries to remain mutually exclusive during her performance. She does not pay attention to the routines before her. Talking about her peak performance, she interestingly said that it comes “where you see me dancing on the sidelines and letting loose — that’s what my focus looks like. That’s me being locked in.” Her innovative mental conditioning has also enabled Groth to cope with the absence of Suni Lee.

Taking pressure situation in one’s stride

As Suni Lee called in sick, Auburn had to face a setback because of her absence. As Auburn head coach Jeff Graba put it, “Suni and Derrian (Gobourne) were behind in some of these lineups that almost abdicated some of the pressure to them. When you have the Olympic gold medalist behind you, you feel fairly confident she’s going to hit.” In the absence of these stars, the team felt the heat. So did Groth.

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Groth adds, “I’ve never been in as many pressure situations as I have this season.” But she takes the better side of it as she says, “I think it’s encouraging because I’ve gotten to grow and get better in aspects that I hadn’t before, because those pressure situations, they do impact you, so it’s been better for me mentally to be able to adapt and conquer, because it is a mental switch.” It is this very mental switch that Groth is trying to educate her juniors with.

Groth pointed out, “I think it’s very important for each of us to carry that same mentality, and with our new people in these positions — our freshmen and then some people that have broken into the lineup — it’s important that we instill that same mental approach in everyone so we’re all on the same page.” Known for her rock-steady performance and infectious smile, it seems like she has winningly mastered the art of vaulting past those mental battles.

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