Peng Shuai says allegation was “enormous misunderstanding”

Chinese tennis participant Peng Shuai has advised a French newspaper that worldwide concern over her well-being is predicated on “an enormous misunderstanding” and she or he denied having accused a Chinese official of sexual assault.
L’Equipe, which focuses on sports activities information, printed the interview Monday. The publication mentioned it spoke to the tennis participant a day earlier in a Beijing lodge in an hour-long interview organized via China’s Olympic committee.
Also Monday, the International Olympic Committee launched an announcement saying IOC President Thomas Bach had dinner with Peng on Saturday, and she or he attended the China-Norway curling match with IOC member Kirsty Coventry.
The newspaper mentioned it needed to submit questions prematurely and {that a} Chinese Olympic committee official sat in on the dialogue and translated her feedback from Chinese.
The newspaper printed her feedback verbatim – which it mentioned was one other pre-condition for interview – in question-and-answer type.
L’Equipe requested Peng a few put up in November on her verified account on a number one Chinese social media platform, Weibo, which kicked off a storm of worldwide concern about her.
In that put up, Peng wrote that Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier and member of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s omnipotent Politburo Standing Committee, had pressured her to have intercourse regardless of repeated refusals. Her put up additionally mentioned they’d intercourse as soon as seven years in the past and she or he had emotions for him after that.
Peng briefly disappeared from public view, then appeared at some promotional appearances organized by the federal government. The interview with L’Equipe was her first sit-down dialogue with non-Chinese media because the accusation.
But talking to L’Equipe, Peng denied having accused Zhang of assault. “Sexual assault? I never said that anyone made me submit to a sexual assault,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.
“This post resulted in an enormous misunderstanding from the outside world,” she additionally mentioned. “My wish is that the meaning of this post no longer be skewed.”