Aly Raisman shows her class as bronze medal slips away

LONDON -- Aly Raisman grabbed the sides of her warmup jacket -- at just about the place where a medal would have hung -- and did what she's always done. She held it together.

There's a stoicism to the captain of the U.S. women's gymnastics team that endears her to coaches and teammates alike. She never gets nervous, so unfazed by the bright arena lights that it's as if she's just getting in a workout, not competing on her sport's biggest stage.

After the most gut-wrenching moment of her career, Raisman relied on that toughness more than ever, saying all the right things -- as usual -- when a tiebreaker let a bronze medal slip through her grasp in the women's all-around finals.

The 18-year-old, the oldest of the team's five teenagers, praised gold medal-winning teammate Gabby Douglas.

Raisman didn't criticize the International Gymnastics Federation for its straightforward ruling that gave the bronze to Russian Aliya Mustafina. The two finished with the same score of 59.566, but it was Mustafina who stood on the podium next to Douglas and silver medalist Viktoria Komova because the total of Mustafina's three best events was higher than Raisman's.

The ever-polite kid from Needham, Mass., didn't even get angry at the tactless way she learned she was leaving O2 Arena empty-handed. Rather than being told by a FIG official or someone from the U.S. coaching staff, Raisman didn't know the outcome until a media member explained it to her. "I'm more sad than angry," she said.

Instead of placing blame elsewhere, she was upset with herself. It wasn't Mustafina's fault that Raisman struggled on balance beam, her best event.

"She didn't do anything wrong," Raisman said. "She had a good competition, too."

Even if 2010 world champion Mustafina thought she was out of the running after her own struggles on the beam. "I was almost 100 percent sure that I wouldn't get to medal," she said.

All Raisman needed was a typical set on beam to put herself in position to give the U.S. two all-around medalists for the second straight games. Yet in a packed arena awash in American flags and in an event in which she's among the best in the world, Raisman flinched.

Usually so serene that it appears she's working out on top of a kitchen table, not a four-inch-wide piece of wood, Raisman bent over after a front somersault and put both hands down to regain her balance. Said her coach, Mihai Brestyan, "I don't know what happened."

"Beam is her strongest event," U.S. women's team coordinator Martha Karolyi said. "She's very solid like a rock. I don't know what happened to her mind today."