AFP, Beijing :
Peng Shuai met Olympic chief Thomas Bach at the Beijing Winter Games, the IOC said Monday, while US ski star Mikaela Shiffrin suffered bitter disappointment in her first attempt at gold in China.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said tennis player Peng, who sparked global concern in November when she fell silent after alleging that a top Chinese politician had forced her into sex, dined with Bach on Saturday and watched curling.
Peng reappeared in public nearly three weeks after her allegation, and later withdrew it, insisting her online comments had been taken out of context. But fears for her safety and well-being remained.
Separately, in an interview published Monday with French sports daily L’Equipe, Peng repeated her denial.
“I never said anyone had sexually assaulted me in any way,” said the former world number one doubles player.
Asked why she deleted the social media post containing the allegation, Peng said: “Because I wanted to.”
“There was a huge misunderstanding in the outside world following this post,” she said.
“I don’t want the meaning of this post to be twisted anymore. And I don’t want any further media hype around it.”
Defending champion Shiffrin was among the favourites to retain the women’s giant slalom title and win a third Olympic gold medal of her career, but in bright morning sunshine she made an error near the top of her first run and slid out.
“There’s a huge disappointment, not even counting medals,” she said. “The day was finished basically before it even started.”
The American vowed to move on and quickly concentrate on Wednesday’s shorter technical event in which she is a four-time world champion.
“I’m not going to cry about this because that’s just wasting energy. My best chance for the next races is to move forward, to refocus, and I feel like I’m in a good place to do that.”
