SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The girls will come in, often wide-eyed and eager, to get a feel for what the typical day of an elite gymnast looks like. After watching three-time Olympic medalist Aly Raisman make her way through another energy-sapping, mettle-testing, soul-draining workout, those same girls who dream of following in Raismans footsteps often leave in tears.I feel bad that Im supposed to be inspiring them and they dont even want to do it anymore, Raisman said. I think people are surprised at how hard it is.Six hours a day. Six days a week. Week after week. Year after year. Usually for as long as their bodies -- not to mention their brains -- can take it.Raisman can joke about it now that shes on the other side with a spot on a second Olympic team assured after national team coordinator Martha Karolyi selected her for the five-woman team along with Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez and Madison Kocian. Sunday nights giddy moment, however, is tempered by the reality that the most challenging four weeks of their careers await. Time off between now and the opening ceremonies in Rio de Janeiro will be scarce, if it exists at all.The Grind is a rite of passage in the powerhouse U.S. womens program, one designed to end with tearful hugs on the podium with gold medals draped around their necks as The Star-Spangled Banner plays. Its a bid for glory that comes with an inherent risk as Karolyi and the coaching staff grapple with the question of how much is too much.Its a fine line Karolyi believes she has found a way to straddle effectively while building a dynasty that hasnt lost a major international competition in eight years. She is unapologetic in her approach, one that places a higher emphasis on execution than repetition. For competition days, the Americans almost always are done with their warm-ups first, part of Karolyis directive to get it right and get out of there.Mentally you will be tired, but physically you are doing less when youre getting closer, then you can avoid overtraining, Karolyi said.If anything, Karolyi appears to have mellowed as she nears retirement. Olympic champion Mary Lou Retton remembers throwing 70 vaults a day while training under Karolyi and her husband Bela before the 1984 Games. Back then there were no extra mats to help pad the landings to take some of the pressure off their joints, an added layer of protection that is standard today.I hit that (gold-medal winning) vault when I had to, Retton said with a laugh while pointing out that at 48 shes already had both hips replaced. They train smarter and more efficient. Im pretty beat up.At this point in the Olympic cycle, healthy is a relative term. When the 2012 Olympic team arrived in London, reigning world champion Jordyn Wieber was dealing with stress fractures in her right leg. While the adrenaline took over during competition, she spent the majority of her down time in treatment and limited her practice routines. Though Wieber helped the Fierce Five roll to gold, she also failed to qualify for the all-around final, finishing as the third American behind Raisman and Gabby Douglas.Now retired and serving as a volunteer assistant at UCLA (where shes also a student), Wieber doesnt believe she was overworked, calling her injury inevitable after thousands of hours in the gym. The severity of the pain didnt ramp up until the team arrived in London. With a lifetime goal finally in sight, Wieber bit her cheek and pressed forward.Everybody was banged up at the Olympics, she said. Im on the Olympic team already. Im not going to give that up.Its a mindset that can place Karolyi and her staff in a difficult position, particularly when it comes to teenagers who likely will have just one shot at their sports biggest stage.Coaching gymnastics is such a small part of it, said Kim Zmeskal Burdette, who coaches Olympic alternate Ragan Smith. Its reading their emotions, reading their body language. Are they just frustrated with this skill or is their body not functioning? Its hard.Zmeskal Burdette would know. The 1991 world champion acknowledges she was extremely intimidated to speak up during her career, concerned any sign of weakness would damage her standing. While making a comeback in the late 90s, she ignored the throbbing in her shoulder -- throbbing that eventually led to surgery -- out of fear of getting passed up.If I say something, I dont get to do bars, she said. I dont want to not do bars. My friends are going to do bars. Theyre going to get better at bars. Im going to be stressed that Im not doing bars. It kind of happens naturally.Every single athlete at Olympic Trials has at some point been pushed to exhaustion at her home gym far away from Karolyis watchful eyes. Raisman estimates shes done her boundary-pushing floor exercise 8 million times, which in her mind is only a slight exaggeration. There have been days shell peel herself off the floor to go home and her father will need to pick her up because she cant muster the energy to get behind the wheel.I think people always say we train so much, but the system works, Raisman said. You kind of have to push yourself to the point where you feel you can do your routine in your sleep. ... Im not saying its easy or its fun. Its fun now that Ive put in the work and its all coming together. Medhi Benatia Jersey . Fred Couples, captain of the U.S. side, put it all into perspective. "We know whos in charge," he said. 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LOUIS -- Attorneys for the St. Rory McIlroy believes the spate of withdrawals from this summers Olympics is not embarrassing for golf because the Games do not represent the pinnacle of the sport.McIlroy, who will marry fiancée Erica Stoll next year, opted out of representing Ireland in Rio after citing his concerns over the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne virus which has been linked to defects in newborn babies and Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.World No.1 Jason Day and U.S. Open runner-up Shane Lowry also withdrew their names from consideration this week, joining a growing list of players which includes Australian pair Marc Leishman and Adam Scott, South African trio Branden Grace, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel and Fijis Vijay Singh. Graeme McDowell also made himself unavailable as his wife is due to give birth to their second child during the Games.Speaking ahead of the Open de France at Le Golf National, McIlroy was coincidentally forced to bat away an insect as he answered the first of several questions on the topic, including whether the number of withdrawals meant golf should not have returned to the Games for the first time since 1904.Thats not for me to say, the four-time major champion said. I wasnt a part of the process. The R&A and some of the other bodies that run our sport thought it was a great idea, and obviously it is, to try and get golf into different markets, and the Olympics is obviously a great platform to do that.Ive said to people I have four Olympic Games (major championships) a year. Thats my pinnacle. Thats what I play for. Thats what Ill be remembered for.Some people argue that it would have been better to send amateurs there, but the whole reason that golf is in the Olympics is because they wanted the best players to go and compete. But unfortunately with where it is this year, people just arent comfortable going down there and putting themselves or their family at risk.Id say if the Olympic Games were in most other cities or most other countries in the world this year, you wouldnt find as many people not wanting to go and participate.I dont think its embarrassing for the game because most other athletes dream their whole lives of competing in the Olympics, winning Olympic gold, and we havent. We dream of winning Claret Jugs and we dream of winning green jackets. Whether that makes golf look insular in any way ... its just the way it is.Although there is no vaccination for Zika, McIlroy recently had the others required to travel to Brazil and said in May he wanted to go and give it my best shot while he ddid not have a family.dddddddddddd The 27-year-old also said he did not want to let down Irelands golf captain Paul McGinley, whom he spoke to before announcing his withdrawal.That was probably one of the toughest phone calls Ive had to make, because weve talked about it so much, McIlroy added. Weve done so much work, got accommodation, got security down there, got a chef in, got everything planned out. I got my jabs; I had two dead shoulders for about four days.But then at the end of the day, if Im not 100 percent comfortable going down there, I just dont want to put it at risk. Theres another Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020 and Im more than happy to wait until then to get that Olympic experience.Asked why none of the top female golfers had withdrawn despite the risks posed by Zika, McIlroy added: I guess some of the top women golfers might not have plans to have children in the next six months to a year. Youve got Shane [Lowry] who has just got married. Jason Day has a young family. Im getting married next year.I think you cant really compare apples-to-apples because were just in a different position than they are. Id say 90 percent of the athletes going to the Olympics are single and have no plans to start a family in the near future, whereas there are some golfers that are in that position and in that scenario.World No.2 Jordan Spieth said on Tuesday he was uncertain about playing in Rio, adding: Ive heard some stories on both sides about the security threats that Brazil and Rio have.Transportation is a big security issue down there, how to get from one place to another with the different kind of violence that we dont see here.Im going to get answers soon on how we plan to be secured down there. This is a personal safety decision which is going to outweigh any pressure that we feel [to compete].In contrast, Germanys Martin Kaymer is keen to compete in Rio and compared the Games to the Ryder Cup, only a lot bigger.He added: The Ryder Cup is a lot of passion and a lot of heart, but if you play for your country and you see the people from your country getting prepared for the Olympic Games, for their moment, that they prepared for four years. Thats super inspiring.In a selfish way, Im happy that they pulled out if it makes it easier for me to become a gold medal winner. But if you see the bigger picture , if no one goes this year and very little go in four years, the chance that we are going to compete [in 2024] is going to be slim. 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