In an interview with the sports daily in the Olympic bubble, the tennis player, ex-world number one in doubles, assures us that she leads a normal life, without dispelling doubts about her freedom of movement.
She repeats that she has no “never disappeared”. Two days after meeting the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach on Saturday, on the sidelines of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese Peng Shuai, whose personal situation worries the world, gave an interview to the newspaper the team.
Asked about her life since November, when she accused a former Chinese leader of forcing her to have sex, before temporarily disappearing, and causing concern in the world of tennis and sport, 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 am a completely normal girl. Sometimes I’m calm, sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I feel sad, or I can feel very stressed. She still recognizes that she is sometimes “under great pressure…”
“All the normal emotions and reactions that inhabit women, I live and feel them too”insists the one who, since the start of the affair, had simply appeared on videos showing her attending sporting events, without dispelling fears about her full freedom of movement.
As to the facts that gave rise to this case and “sexual assault” suffered, Peng Shuai denies again. Asked about her message posted on a social network, quickly retracted, she explains: “Sexual assault? I never said anyone sexually assaulted me.” Why was the accusing message deleted? “Because I wanted to” she answers.
Guest of France Info on Monday morning, the editorial director of the team, Jérôme Cazadieux, detailed the context and the conditions of the interview, the first won by an international media since the beginning of the case. That this happens in the midst of a diplomatic-sports offensive by the Chinese authorities is obviously no coincidence.
“We sent a request after the Chinese IOC through the international IOC. […] We were answered positively, with a request from them presented as a request from the player, but we have the right to doubt it, whether it is a question and answer interview. In exchange, we asked that it be out of the question for there to be any proofreading”, explains Cazadieux.
Dressed in a red and black tracksuit, Peng Shuai, 36, “appeared in good shape” according to the journalists who conducted the interview, his first since November. She arrived in a room set aside for the interview “with a Chinese IOC member and another Chinese whose role we did not know exactly but who spoke French”, specifies Jérôme Cazadieux, who adds that his diary was “beyond the questions that had been addressed”. In particular, the interview lasted much longer than initially agreed.
Does that mean we have to believe it, given the context? “We have the right not to believe her, replies Jérôme Cazadieux. Our goal was above all to meet her, to show her our support. Is she free to move and travel outside of Chinese territory? “She said she wanted to go to Lausanne, says Jérôme Cazadieux. This must commit the IOC and the media to follow the Peng Shuai case.”
“Always stayed in touch”
On Thursday, two days before the meeting between Thomas Bach and Peng Shuai, the IOC had affirmed that it “would support” Peng Shuai if she were to call for an investigation into the charges of forced sex she made against a former Chinese leader. “If she wants an investigation (into these charges), 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 Thomas Bach during a press conference on the eve of the opening ceremony of the 2022 Olympics.
The IOC confirmed in a press release that its president, accompanied by former swimmer Kirsty Coventry, IOC member, had met the player, specifying that the Chinese would attend several events of the 2022 Olympics after having already followed a meeting of the tournament. mixed doubles curling. “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 reiterated its invitation to him to go to the headquarters of the Olympic body in Lausanne (Switzerland).
During the joint IOC and Organizing Committee daily press briefing, IOC spokesperson Mark Adams recalled that “the IOC, being a sports organization, our job is to stay in contact with it […] we do everything possible to make her happy. It’s not up to us to judge (what happens), we also have to listen to what she says”he insisted.
During his interview at the‘Teamthe former double world number one also announces that she is ending 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.