Peng Shuai pictured at Winter Olympic events as WTA reiterate concern for tennis star

Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai has been pictured at a number of events at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Peng has been seen at the team figure skating competition and the women’s freeski big air final over the past 24 hours.

She attended the latter event with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, who said he and Peng spoke with athletes at the Big Air Shougang venue for around 30 minutes.

Peng had already attended the mixed doubles curling competition on Saturday alongside former IOC Athletes’ Commission chair Kirsty Coventry.

The 35-year-old’s most recent appearance came a day after she gave her first interview to a Western media outlet – L’Equipe – since accusing a former Chinese party leader of sexual assault.

Peng, a former world number one doubles player, made the allegations against China’s former Vice Premier, Zhang Gaoli, at the start of November.

She claimed she was coerced into having sex with Zhang, which began an on-off consensual relationship with the former Politburo Standing Committee member.

Her post was deleted around 30 minutes after it was published, and she subsequently disappeared from public view for three weeks, sparking serious concern about her wellbeing.

Peng was then shown in a steady stream of photos and videos released by Chinese Government-controlled media on Twitter.

She also retracted her claims in an interview with a Chinese-language Singaporean newspaper in December, and did the same again in the interview with L’Equipe.

“This post has given rise to a huge misunderstanding from the outside world,” Peng said. “I hope that the meaning of this post will no longer be twisted. And I also hope that we don’t add more hype to this.”

The interview with L’Equipe was granted