The International Olympics Committee claims to have spoken with Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis player who mysteriously disappeared from public view after posting on social media that a highly placed Chinese government official had raped her.
The IOC now says that its representatives spoke directly with the player last week and that they will be meeting with her sometime during the coming Winter Olympics in Beijing, according to Reuters.
“Since the first call that the IOC held with Peng Shuai on 21 November 2021, the IOC team has kept in touch with her and had a number of conversations with her – the last one just the past week,” then IOC said in a statement.
“She mentioned again that she is looking forward to a meeting with IOC President Thomas Bach and Emma Terho, the Chair of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, to which we had invited her in the first conversation,” the statement added.
(COMBO) This combination of file photos created on January 25, 2022, shows International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach (L) at a press conference in Tokyo on November 16, 2020. China’s President Xi Jinping (R) delivering a speech upon his arrival at Macau’s international airport in Macau on December 18, 2019. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE, DU XIAOYI/AFP via Getty Images)
Early last November, Shuai posted a message to her Weibo Chinese social media account, saying that she had been sexually abused in 2019 by Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli. But the player’s account was quickly shut down, and the post was deleted. Shuai then spent nearly a month in isolation, not being seen on her own in public for more than three weeks.
BEIJING, CHINA – OCTOBER 20: Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli makes a speech during the Philippines – China Trade and Investment Forum at the Great Hall of the People on October 20, 2016, in Beijing China. (Photo by Wu Hong-Pool/Getty Images)
During the week she was out of public view, Shuai became the focus of much international discussion. At one point, the Women’s Tennis Association became so worried over her silence that the organization insisted that Shuai was being “influenced by others,” and they suspended all sponsored games in China until they were assured of Shuai’s safety.
But by December, Shuai had reemerged into the public eye and suddenly began claiming that she never made any assault charges against Vie Premier Gaoli.
The Women’s Tennis Association has not yet changed its suspension policy and has not said whether it is satisfied with Shuai’s situation.
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