Peng Shuai reappears in Beijing and retracts allegations of violence: “A misunderstanding”

They met her in a Beijing hotel with an independent interpreter. But even to the Equipe, tennis player Peng Shuai downplayed what happened last November, when she posted a message on the Chinese social network Weibo accusing a senior Chinese government executive of rape. Before deleting everything and disappearing from circulation for a few weeks, and at the end within a month, denying everything. As she repeats today to the French newspaper: “I never said I was raped”.

Contacts

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“Never talked about sexual assault – reiterates the tennis player – and I have never disappeared from circulation. I just got a lot of messages that I couldn’t reply to. But I have always kept in touch with friends and family. And I also spoke to the WTA. But then the computer communication system of their site was updated at the end of the year and many of us had difficulty connecting. But I kept in touch with colleagues. So I don’t know why it was said that I was gone ”.

Impact

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During the interview that lasted about an hour, Shuai also states that he did not understand the international impact of his post: “I don’t look at information from abroad much, I don’t read English. I thank everyone but I didn’t think there would be so much concern, I don’t understand so much concern about me “. The message, however, was posted: “The message has given rise to a huge misunderstanding. I just want that its meaning no longer be deformed, and that it is no longer talked about. I deleted the message, because I wanted it that way. Feelings, sport and politics are very different things. And my love problems are not to be mixed with sports and politics. Sport cannot mix with politics because when it happens it betrays the Olympic spirit, against the will of the world of sport and sportsmen. My life is always the same. I am a normal girl, sometimes happy and happy, sometimes sad or stressed and under pressure. They are normal emotions “. Thus ends the story, and perhaps also the career of the 36-year-old who confesses that she no longer feels able to play at the highest levels, but because of injuries and knee problems.