“We met Peng Shuai”, as The Team, Monday, February 7. The French sports daily is the first foreign and independent media (after an exchange of a few minutes with a Singaporean newspaper in December) to have been able to speak with the Chinese tennis player, whose situation has caused great concern internationally since she accused, in early November 2021, a senior leader of the Beijing regime of having raped her .
The message, posted on the Weibo social network, was promptly censored and the 36-year-old player disappeared for three weeks. Since she reappeared, her rare speeches have been reduced to laconic denials, and the interview granted to The Team on the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympics is no exception to the rule.
“I didn’t disappear”, “I never said anyone sexually assaulted me”, ” [ma vie] is as it should be: nothing special »said the former world number one in front of the two journalists of the daily.
If it’s about trying to find out if she had had “problems with the Chinese authorities” after its publication on Weibo, the former Olympic tennis champion responds with a dodge whose content recalls a position often expressed by the Chinese government:
“Feelings, sport and politics are three very distinct things. My sentimental problems, my private life, should not be involved in sports and politics. And sport should not be politicized. »
? We met Peng Shuai The front page of L’Équipe newspaper this Monday, February 7, 2022 https://t.co/KEaBmFpwbz
Interview granted under conditions
Agreed and expected answers, about which the newspaper assures that it had no illusions. In an introductory remark, the journalists explain having had “fully aware” than Peng Shuai “would repeat comments previously made to Chinese state media” and “every word would be weighed to the nearest gram”. Impossible to imagine another possibility, in fact, given the Chinese political context and that of the realization of the interview.
Questions had to be submitted in advance, the athlete had to speak in Chinese
As explained The Team, the editorial’s request to meet the player was made through the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) and was only accepted under conditions. The questions had to be submitted in advance, the athlete had to speak in Chinese (and not in English as she was able to do in the past at a press conference), and the interview had to lead to a publication in the form of a interview and without comment. The editors agreed, stipulating that they would not allow proofreading on their part.
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