Peng Shuai met with IOC President Thomas Bach for dinner in Beijing as the tennis star continued to row back on allegations of sexual abuse against a top Chinese official.
According to an obtuse IOC statement Bach and Peng Shuai met at the Olympic Club in Beijing on the opening day of the Winter Olympics, accompanied by IOC member Kirsty Coventry.
The statement said that Peng Shuai plans to attend events at the Games and claimed she and Coventry attended that night’s mixed curling match between China and Norway.
“During the dinner, the three spoke about their common experience as athletes at the Olympic Games,” read the IOC release.
“Peng Shuai spoke of her disappointment at not being able to qualify for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
“In this context, she also shared her intention to travel to Europe when the COVID-19 pandemic is over, and the IOC President invited her to Lausanne to visit the IOC and The Olympic Museum, to continue the conversation on their Olympic experiences. Peng Shuai accepted this invitation.
“Kirsty Coventry and Peng Shuai also agreed that they would remain in contact. And all three agreed that any further communication about the content of the meeting would be left to her discretion.”
In November Peng Shuai posted on Chinese social media site Weibo that former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli had forced her to have sex despite repeated refusals.
Within 30 minutes the post had been deleted and Peng Shuai disappeared from public view.
The in-person meeting in Beijing followed a series of reported telephone conversations between the IOC with Peng Shuai over the past few months, starting on 21 November.
The 36-year-old tennis player conducted her first interview with a western media outlet, French sports newspaper L’Equipe, in Beijing this week.
In the heavily-controlled interview where Peng Shuai was accompanied by the chief of staff of the Chinese Olympic Committee, she said: “This post has given rise to a huge misunderstanding from the outside world.
“I hope that we no longer distort the meaning of this post. And I also hope that we don’t add more hype on this. I never said anyone sexually assaulted me.
“I never disappeared. It’s just that a lot of people, like my friends, including from the IOC, messaged me, and it was quite impossible to reply to so many messages,” she continued.
“But with my close friends, I always remained in close contact. I discussed with them, answered their emails, I also discussed with the WTA … we always kept in touch with colleagues. That’s why I don’t know why the information that I had disappeared, spread.”
L’Equipe asked Peng what her life has been like since November.
“It is as it should be,” she said. “Nothing special.”
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