Aly Raisman now the wily veteran of these U.S. gymnastics trials

— -- SAN JOSE, Calif. -- American gymnast Aly Raisman was a three-time medal winner at the 2012 London Olympics. She long ago proved her toughness at competitions. At 22, she's also the leader of the U.S. women's gymnastics team, and so much a veteran that Simone Biles, the new star of the team, jokingly calls her "Grandma Aly."

If Raisman feels any pressure while she's competing at an event, she hides it well while on the floor. But if you sit Raisman down and ask her about the grind of making it through the two-day U.S. Olympic team trials that conclude Sunday, that's an entirely different story. She's not too proud to confess every doubt and crying jag and throat-clenching fear she has felt about making the five-woman squad that will compete at next month's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Or how the pressure gets ratcheted up more at the trials.

"It's the survival of the fittest," Raisman says. "And all of us are exhausted."

The months-long U.S. Olympic team selection process is choreographed by national team director Martha Karolyi and meticulously designed to be high on difficulty, high on volume training, high on the sort of longitudinal oversight that is meant to produce pressure-ready gymnasts who can conjure up great performances on demand. Karolyi and her selection committee closely watch even off-day workouts.

The process is meant to milk the best possible performance out of every contender for the five-woman Olympic team, whose names will be announced by Karolyi and her selection committee after the competition concludes Sunday night.

While Karolyi listens to the others, she always has the biggest say.

Laughing at herself now, Raisman says, "I definitely get a little nervous when Martha comes over. If I even see her in the corner of my eye, I always get a little nervous. If you watch her selection committee, they're watching every single move you make and she has them placed at each event to make sure we're all doing our job. So I always take a look around and know where she is. I think all the girls are like that here. We're always like [whispering]: She's here, she's here. She's right here!"

Raisman says she tried to prepare her younger teammates for what else they would encounter here at the trials, especially in Friday's opening-night competition. "I told them the arena is going to be so loud, they're going to be chanting 'U.S.A' as loud as they can, the noise is going to be incredible. Every parent and kid in the stands will be cheering for us, unlike other places we go in the world. It's just going to be intense."

And she was right. The pressure on all 14 finalists was palpable. You could see it as they came tearing down the vault runway with their faces serious, jaws set. You noticed the tight little smiles they could barely muster after landing a dismount off the bars or beam because their minds were already racing ahead to what their score would be. Would it get them to Rio? Would it hurt their chances?

Laurie Hernandez got the biggest roar of opening night for her terrific floor routine. But the gasps of the capacity crowd at SAP Center when returning favorite Gabby Douglas fell off the beam had to only add to Douglas' horror.

"It's hard to flip the switch," Douglas admitted, "and get back on track."

Even Biles -- a three-time world champ, but rookie when it comes to the Olympic trials -- walked off the floor staring at her feet after her beam routine because she was unhappy with her performance.

"I wouldn't say it was nerves tonight, exactly, that affected her," Biles' coach, Aimee Boorman, explained Friday. "I think she was more excited than nervous. At one point, she turned to me and said, 'There's just so much energy in this room. This energy is out of control!' She had to find a way to control it."

Biles should be more relaxed than anyone. She's a lock to make the Olympic team. Raisman and 16-year-old newcomer Hernandez seem safe too, barring a catastrophe on closing night. Hernandez, in particular, was terrific Friday, despite a bobble on the uneven bars. The energy and charisma she threw out later during her electric floor exercise left Karolyi smiling and nodding, "Wow!" after Hernandez stuck her last pose and the music stopped.

Douglas wasn't so lucky. The defending Olympic all-around champ was sitting fourth until she fell off the balance beam on her last rotation of the night, dropping her to seventh place with one day to go.

Douglas never complains about still being judged by her 2012 standard, or relentlessly asked questions about Now versus Then. But the storyline has always been a little dishonest toward her. Douglas is now a 20-year-old woman who is three inches taller and light-years different from her 16-year-old self in London. It's also been clear for some time that she isn't the same gymnast she was four years ago and, anyway, even if she was, Biles has come along since then to blaze past Douglas and everyone else in the world. It's disingenuous to suggest Douglas could again win the all-around.

Instead, Douglas has spoken repeatedly at these trials about trying to get back to being "smiley and bubbly" and trusting her training because "that's when I compete best." But she looked lost in thought and emotionally subdued in both Thursday's workout and Friday's competition and now needs a strong showing Sunday to cement her place on the Olympic team.

"I have to find that joy again,'' Douglas said.

Raisman understands.

"It's all just so hard sometimes that I've doubted if I have what it takes," Raisman says of her own comeback. "There were some days in training where my coach would say, 'Do something,' and I'd look at him like, 'Are you crazy?' ... As he always says, 'You can hate me now, but I promise you, you'll thank me later.'"

Raisman laughs now and says she sees the wisdom in making the U.S. Olympic team selection process as arduous as it's become.

"The system works," she says. "So they shouldn't change it. It's intense, but we all know if we just do our jobs, we can be the best in the world again."