BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai was on hand to watch China’s Eileen Gu win gold in the Big Air competition in Beijing on Tuesday.
Peng could be seen in the stands wearing a black knit hat with the Olympic rings on them and a black coat with the Chinese flag.
“I just met her, she was here sitting in the stadium,” International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach told Reuters.
“She was among the athletes, and I had the opportunity to meet with a number of athletes from Switzerland and from Germany and the U.S.”, he said.
“She was sitting there and we had the opportunity to talk and now she has to go to the quarantine, she told me, she will leave now the closed loop,” he said.
The well-being of Peng, a three-time Olympian, became a matter of global concern when she appeared to allege on social media in November that a former Chinese vice premier, Zhang Gaoli, had sexually assaulted her in the past.
In an interview this week with French newspaper L’Equipe at a hotel inside the Olympic bubble in Beijing, Peng denied she had made such allegations.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot and Krystal Hu; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
