Mon 07 February 2022:
In an interview with French newspaper L’Equipe at a hotel in Beijing, Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai denied she had made such allegations.
“In the text we could see in Europe, you accused someone of sexual assault. What did you really write? We don’t understand,” asked the paper.
“Sexual assault? I never said anyone had sexually assaulted me in any way,” said Peng, without elaborating.
In her now-deleted post on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, Peng had written “why did you take me to your house and force me into having relations with you?”, though she also described the relationship with Zhang as an on-off one that was also consensual.
A three-time Olympian, became a matter of global concern when she appeared to allege on social media that a former Chinese vice premier, Zhang Gaoli, had sexually assaulted her in the past.
The post led the Women’s Tennis Association to suspend tournaments in China and caused an international outcry about her safety.
Discussion of the scandal has been heavily censored in China’s tightly controlled cyberspace and searches for Peng’s name on Weibo continue to show no recent search results.
Peng has not updated her Weibo account since the post was removed.
Questions were submitted in advance, and the paper agreed to publish Peng’s responses without commentary, it said.
Peng told the French paper her social media post had caused a “huge misunderstanding”, repeating comments reported by a Singapore media outlet in December, and that she did not want “any further media hype” about it.
[ENGLISH VERSION] For the first time since her public reappearance and the turmoil caused by her 2 November message, Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai talks to an international and independent medium. https://t.co/8ygjVnKZOz pic.twitter.com/cGA57iwhDA
— L’ÉQUIPE (@lequipe) February 6, 2022
“I’d like to say that feelings, sports, and politics are three very distinct things. My lovelife problems, my personal life must not be mingled with sports and politics,” she was quoted as saying.
“And sports must not be politicized because when that happens, most of the time it means turning one’s back on the Olympic spirit and it goes against the will of the sporting world and the athletes.”
The interview was conducted in Chinese and translated into English by a Chinese Olympic official during the interview, as well as an interpreter based in Paris, said the paper.
“It’s just that many people, like my friends or people from the [International Olympic Committee] messaged me, and it was simply impossible to answer so many messages. But I’ve been always in close contact with my close friends,” she told L’Equipe in the interview.
She also said she had not been aware of the worries expressed by the international community, such as the use of social media hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai by some of the world’s top tennis players, including Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, as she did not watch much foreign media news and could not read in English.
The tennis star spoke in Chinese, with translations provided by Wang as well as L’Equipe’s own interpreter in Paris. The newspaper said Peng, wearing a mask and the red tracksuit of the Chinese hockey team, “appeared in good shape.”
Peng, a former world No. 1 doubles player and three-time Olympian, also told L’Equipe she was retiring from professional tennis, citing a longtime knee injury that she had been receiving treatment for abroad before the pandemic. She said she regretted not being able to compete at the Tokyo Olympics last year.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:
TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent
FACEBOOK (CLICK HERE)
https://web.facebook.com/ipindependent
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The WTA, which said in December that Peng’s appearances did not address its concerns about her wellbeing, did not immediately respond to a request for comments on her latest remarks.
