Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, whose personal situation has worried the world since she accused a senior Beijing regime leader of raping her in the fall of 2021, has given a newspaper interview The Team – the first in an international media since November – uploaded Sunday, February 6. In this interview, the 36-year-old athlete says she has no “never gone”.
In a long letter published on November 2 on Weibo, Peng Shuai accused Zhang Gaoli of raping her in 2014, when he was number 7 in the Chinese regime. Her testimony had quickly been erased from social networks and her account closed, then she had given no sign of life, until a videoconference interview with the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach, on November 21.
“It’s just that a lot of people, like my friends at the IOC, sent me messages, and it was quite impossible to reply to so many messages, she explains to The Team. But, with my close friends, I always stayed in close contact, I chatted with them, answered their emails, I also chatted with the WTA [Association des joueuses de tennis]… »
Asked regarding the facts that led to this case and “sexual assault” suffered, Peng Shuai denies, just as she returns to her message posted on a social network, a message which quickly disappeared. “Sexual assault? I never said that anyone had sexually assaulted me in any way.”, she insists. Why was the accusing message deleted? “Because I wanted to”, she answers.
Dressed in a red and black tracksuit, Peng Shuai, 36, “appeared in good shape” according to the journalists who met her.
Dinner with the IOC President
Asked regarding her life since November, Peng Shuai explains that she “Is as it should be: nothing special…” “First of all, I would like people to understand who I am: I’m a completely normal girl. Sometimes I’m serene, sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I feel sad, or I can feel very stressed, under very strong pressure… All the normal emotions and reactions that inhabit women, I live and feel them too », she continues.
She says she met Thomas Bach last Saturday, on the sidelines of the Beijing Olympics. During this dinner, “We were able to discuss a lot and exchange pleasantly”, explains the tennis player. “He asked me if I was considering returning to competition, what were my plans, what I thought I would do, etc. », explains Peng Shuai, interviewed by the two journalists from The Team in a hotel located in the Olympic bubble.
Thursday, two days before the meeting between Thomas Bach and Peng Shuai, the IOC had affirmed that it “would support” whether she should call for an investigation into the charges of forced sex.
“If she wants an investigation, of course we will support her, but it must be her decision, it is her life, these are her accusations. We had the accusations and we also heard the withdrawal” of these accusations, said the IOC President during a press conference the day before the opening ceremony of the 2022 Olympics.
She’s ending her career
The IOC confirmed in a press release that its president, accompanied by former swimmer Kirsty Coventry, member of the institution, had met the player, specifying that the Chinese would attend several events of the 2022 Olympics following having already followed a meeting of the mixed doubles curling tournament. “All three have decided that any further communication on the content of the meeting will be left to the discretion of the tennis player”, said the IOC, which once more invited her to go to the headquarters of the Olympic body in Lausanne (Switzerland).
In the interview at The Team, Peng Shuai also announces that she is putting an end to her professional career, except perhaps “in a veteran team”.
“Tennis has transformed my life, brought me joy, challenges and so much more. Even if I no longer participate in professional competitions, I will forever be a tennis player. »
Since the start of the case, the player had simply appeared on videos showing her attending sporting events, without allaying fears regarding her full freedom of movement.
