Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, who has been missing since early November after accusing a former Chinese leader of forcing her to have sex, has spoken “a huge misunderstanding” Sunday February 6, in an interview granted to the newspaper The Team. The sports daily was able to meet the player on the sidelines of the Beijing Olympics. Peng Shuai received the daily’s journalists in a suite on the 16th floor of the hotel where the Chinese Olympic Committee has established its premises.
“Sexual assault? I never said anyone sexually assaulted me”she said in this interview published on the site of the sports daily. “I never disappeared, everyone could see me”adds the tenniswoman, explaining that she does not “[pensait] not that there would be such concern”.
Interview granted by Peng Shuai to the Team ➡️ “A question-answer interview and in exchange no proofreading”: these are the conditions of the interview reveals Jérôme @Cazadieu, the managing editor. “She is not free either in her speech or in her movements”. pic.twitter.com/9geYypYAa8
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) February 7, 2022
For this very framed interview, Peng Shuai was “accompanied by a member of the Chinese Olympic Committee, by another Chinese whose role we do not know exactly but who spoke French”explained on franceinfo Jérôme Cazadieu, the editorial director of the Team.
Some questions had been sent before the interview. “We went beyond the questions asked and she answered all the questions in a very particular context since she is not free to speak or move”insisted Jérôme Cazadieu. “The purpose of this interview was to meet her, to demonstrate the fact that we had not forgotten her, to see what state she was in.”
“My sentimental problems, my private life, should not be involved in sports and politics.”
On November 2, 2021, on her social networks, the tennis player, who was for a time world number 1 in doubles, had accused Zhang Gaoli, former Deputy Prime Minister and former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, of rape. Chinese. His post was quickly deleted. After her accusations, it took two weeks to see her reappear in photos, then in video with Thomas Bach, boss of the IOC.
“I have always stayed in close contact with my close friends”assures today the player at The Team. “I never disappeared. It was just that a lot of people, like my friends including from the IOC, sent me messages, and it was quite impossible to reply to so many messages”she added. “That’s why I don’t know why the information that I was missing spread.” Asked about this episode by the journalists of the team, she answers “in a monotonous, emotionless, almost robotic tone”, explained Jérôme Cazadieu. She says she’s the one who deleted that message, “because I wanted to”she simply justifies.
Peng Shuai says her story is a “huge misunderstanding” ➡️ Can we believe her? “She answered in a robotic way” on questions related to the case says Jérôme @Cazadieu. “You have to go beyond these answers and see the reality in the interstice.” pic.twitter.com/Jd6RTddpoh
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) February 7, 2022
Asked if she had any problems with the Chinese authorities after her accusatory post, Peng Shuai replied that “feelings, sport and politics are three very distinct things”. According to her, one should not mix sport and politics. “Sport should not be politicized because when it is, that most of the time amounts to turning your back on the Olympic spirit and it goes against the will of the world of sport and the sportsmen. ”
For the editorial director of the team, “you have to try to go beyond the answers she gives on this case and try to see the reality in the interstice. The reality is that it is someone who seems to be going approximately but which is totally limited in its oral and physical expression.
Peng Shuai: “My life is as it should be: nothing special”
The tennis player speaks for the first time in an international and independent media since her public reappearance and the whirlwind that accompanied her message of November 2. https://t.co/0mPXJBcY3s pic.twitter.com/rZbRlZxN8a
— THE TEAM (@theteam) February 6, 2022
On January 27, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach announced that he would meet the player during the Beijing Winter Games which began this Saturday, without giving a precise date. In a statement to AFP, an IOC spokesperson said he had been in contact with her on several occasions in January.
Peng Shuai explains today to The Team that his life “is as it should be: nothing special…” Referring to the rest of her career, the tenniswoman assures us that she “[serait] forever a professional tennis player”even if she does not play “not lately”. She announces, in hollow, that she stops her professional career. “It will be very difficult to find my level on the physical level”she pleaded, referring to difficulties with a knee. “My participation in major competitions was already greatly reduced” before the Covid-19 pandemic, she explains.