Chinese tennis star, Peng Shuai has denied her own claims of sexual assault and reports that she disappeared from public view in an interview with foreign media, raising further concerns about her safety.
Peng, 36, claimed in a social media post last year that she had been forced into sex by Zhang Gaoli, China’s former vice-premier, sparking an internet crackdown by Beijing censors that also saw her vanish from public view for weeks.
In her first interview outside Chinese state media on Sunday, Peng told French magazine L’Equipe that she ‘never said’ she had been sexually assaulted and that she ‘never disappeared’.
Accompanied during the interview by a Chinese Olympic committee official who translated all her comments from Chinese, Peng insisted that her social media post was the subject of an ‘enormous misunderstanding’ by the public.
‘Sexual assault? I never said that anyone made me submit to a sexual assault,’ she told the magazine.
‘This post resulted in an enormous misunderstanding from the outside world. My wish is that the meaning of this post no longer be skewed.’
L’Equipe was able to meet with Peng Shuai at the Chinese Olympic Committee hotel in Beijing on Sunday, two days after the Winter Olympics officially got underway.
