Simone Biles thanks Japanese gym where she trained in SECRET amid battle with mental health

Simone Biles has praised a Japanese university for allowing her to use its gym facility to train in secret while she tried to overcome the mental health issues that prompted her to pull out of five Olympic finals. 

The 24-year-old took to Twitter to pay tribute to Juntendo University, saying that she will be ‘forever thankful’ to its staff for allowing her to use its training center in order to try and work on her skills away from prying eyes. 

Her tribute to the university comes shortly after it was revealed that the gymnast’s coaches made a desperate call to one of its staff in the hours after Biles made the shock decision to pull out of the team final, while grappling with a mental block known as the ‘twisties’. 

‘I’ll forever be thankful for Juntendo for allowing me to come train separately to try to get my skills back,’ she wrote, before adding of her experience in Tokyo: ‘The Japanese are some of, if not the sweetest people I’ve ever met.’

Opening up: Simone Biles has paid tribute to the Japanese university that allowed her to use its gym facility so she could train in secret while trying to overcome her mental health issues  

Tribute: The 24-year-old gymnast praised Juntendo University on Twitter, thanking the college for allowing her to train in its gym, one hour outside of Tokyo, away from private eyes

Tribute: The 24-year-old gymnast praised Juntendo University on Twitter, thanking the college for allowing her to train in its gym, one hour outside of Tokyo, away from private eyes

Comeback: Biles dropped out of five Olympic finals, but made a return for the balance beam competition in which she won a bronze medal - having worked on her skills in secret

Comeback: Biles dropped out of five Olympic finals, but made a return for the balance beam competition in which she won a bronze medal – having worked on her skills in secret

According to the Wall Street Journal, Juntendo professor Kazuhiro Aoki received a call from Biles’ trainers on Wednesday morning asking whether she would be able to use the university’s gym facility, which is located an hour outside of Tokyo. 

The gym had already been used by Team USA upon their arrival in Japan, before they moved into the official Olympic facilities. 

‘This is a complicated matter,’ Aoki was told over the phone. ‘But this is for Biles.’ 

He revealed to the publication that the gymnast began training in his gym just two hours after the call was made, explaining that staff locked all of the doors so that Biles could be sure nobody would see her struggling through her routines. 

‘She practiced for two hours that day,’ the WSJ reported. ‘Then she came back for three more days. Each time, Aoki said, she was accompanied by her coaches and a medical provider.’

According to the professor, who was able to catch a glimpse of the gymnast at work, Biles looked ‘like a totally different person’ to the gymnast he saw earlier in July, and he remarked that she ‘often got frozen’ while practicing her skills. 

The call from Biles’ coaches came just 12 hours after the gymnast shocked the world by flubbing her team final vault, her first event in the competition, during which she balked in mid-air and ended up almost crashing down to the ground. 

Location: Biles shared a calamitous video of herself trying to work through the 'twisties' on uneven bars and it is understood the clip was filmed inside of her secret training facility

Location: Biles shared a calamitous video of herself trying to work through the ‘twisties’ on uneven bars and it is understood the clip was filmed inside of her secret training facility  

'Petrifying': The condition causes gymnasts to feel as though they are 'lost in the air' and it can result in serious injury - with Biles admitting she was terrified she was going to hurt herself

'Petrifying': The condition causes gymnasts to feel as though they are 'lost in the air' and it can result in serious injury - with Biles admitting she was terrified she was going to hurt herself

‘Petrifying’: The condition causes gymnasts to feel as though they are ‘lost in the air’ and it can result in serious injury – with Biles admitting she was terrified she was going to hurt herself 

Shortly after the shock error, Biles stunned spectators and teammates alike when she pulled out of the competition altogether, leaving the other three US gymnasts to carry on the final a man-down. 

The gymnast – who won five medals in Rio in 2016 – sparked furious controversy with her decision, with some praising her for spotlighting the importance of mental health, while others accused her of ‘quitting’ and ‘abandoning’ her team. 

At the time, her future at the Olympics was very much up in the air, with USA Gymnastics revealing that she would be regularly evaluated by its psychologists and doctors to determine her fitness to compete in the other event finals she had qualified for: the all-around, floor exercise, uneven bars, vault, and beam. 

One by one, she pulled out of the events – starting with the all-around, which her teammate Sunisa Lee went on to win in her absence. 

One day after the final took place, Biles hit back at her critics, sharing a video of herself training her uneven bars routine, while revealing the impact that the ‘twisties’ had on her skills. 

It is now believed that the video was shot inside the Juntendo University training facility where Biles started training while attempting to fight through her mental health issues. 

In the Instagram video, Simone could be seen crashing to the ground while trying to perform her uneven bars dismount, which requires her to twist her body around in the air. 

Speaking about the struggle with the issue in the caption of her videos, Biles hit out at those who criticized her decision to withdraw from both the finals, insisting that she did not ‘quit’, while noting that mental health is just as serious as physical health.

Shock: Juntendo University professor Kazuhiro Aoki said that Biles' coaches phoned him 12 hours after she dropped out of the team final to ask him to use the college's gym

Shock: Juntendo University professor Kazuhiro Aoki said that Biles’ coaches phoned him 12 hours after she dropped out of the team final to ask him to use the college’s gym 

Concern: According to Aoki, Biles arrived at the gym just one day after she made the shock decision to pull out of the team final, having balked on her vault in mid-air

Concern: According to Aoki, Biles arrived at the gym just one day after she made the shock decision to pull out of the team final, having balked on her vault in mid-air  

Surprise: Biles stunned spectators when she fumbled on her vault - which is usually one of her strongest events - and she later revealed it was the result of the twisties

Surprise: Biles stunned spectators when she fumbled on her vault - which is usually one of her strongest events - and she later revealed it was the result of the twisties

Surprise: Biles stunned spectators when she fumbled on her vault – which is usually one of her strongest events – and she later revealed it was the result of the twisties

‘For anyone saying I quit. I didn’t quit, my mind and body are simply not in sync,’ she wrote.

‘As you can see [in the video]. I don’t think you realize how hard this is on hard/competition surface.

‘Nor do I have to explain why I put health first. Physical health is mental health.’

In a second caption, Biles explained that she had not been experiencing the twisties before traveling to Tokyo, and she hit out at those who suggested that she should have removed herself from competition before it started – insisting that by the time she started struggling, it was too late for an alternate to replace her. 

Ultimately, Biles pulled out of all but one of her event finals, returning to competition for the final event in the lineup, the balance beam. 

During the final, the gymnast put up a solid routine, having removed all twisting elements in an attempt to avoid any risk of the ‘twisties’, and she ended up finishing in the bronze-medal spot. 

Aoki admitted that he was stunned by Biles’ medal win, admitting he had no idea how she had managed to ‘pull it off’, questioning: ‘How could she switch from such a miserable situation to this?’ 

Biles was only able to take part in the beam competition after being cleared by Team USA’s sports psychologists, who traveled with her to Juntendo University in order to monitor her training and assess her mental and physical status.  

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk