Bejing, Feb 7: Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai on Monday again denied alleging sexual assault and said that she was never disappeared from public view. In an interview with French newspaper L’Equipe at the Winter Olympics Peng said: “First of all, I would like to thank all the ATP and WTA players, all the athletes and all the personalities in large numbers who cared about me. “But I didn’t think there would be such concern and I would like to know: why such concern? “I never disappeared, everyone could see me,” she said.
“This post has given rise to a huge misunderstanding from the outside world. I hope that we no longer distort the meaning of this post. And I also hope that we don’t add more hype on this. “I never said anyone sexually assaulted me. “I never disappeared. It’s just that a lot of people, like my friends, including from the IOC, messaged me, and it was quite impossible to reply to so many messages,” she added. The tennis star disappeared from public view after publishing on November 2 a statement on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, accusing the former Chinese vice-premier, 75-year-old Zhang Gaoli, of sexually assaulting her. The post was immediately deleted, Peng’s accounts were removed from the Chinese social networks and the athlete stopped communicating, sparking concerns for her safety.
