This article contains references to sexual assault.
Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai has again denied accusing anyone of sexual assault in her first interview with international media since her allegations against a former vice-premier and subsequent public disappearance sparked global concern for her welfare.
The comments came in an interview with French newspaper L'Equipe published on Monday, and as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed it held a face-to-face meeting with Peng at the Beijing Winter Olympics over the weekend.
The three-time Olympian’s welfare became a matter of global concern last year after she appeared to allege on Chinese social media that a former vice premier, Zhang Gaoli, had sexually assaulted her.
She first denied making such allegations in an interview with Chinese media late last year.
"In the text we could see in Europe, you accused someone of sexual assault. What did you really write? We don't understand," L'Equipe asked in its interview, which took place in a hotel room with Wang Kan, the chief of staff of the Chinese Olympic Committee, present.
"Sexual assault? I never said anyone had sexually assaulted me in any way," the paper quoted Peng as saying.
In her now-deleted post on Weibo, Peng wrote "why did you take me to your house and force me into having relations with you?", though she also described the relationship with Zhang as a on-off one that was also consensual.
The post led the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) to suspend tournaments in China and caused a raft of people from across the world to join calls seeking to confirm she was safe.
The social media hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai has been circulating heavily and appeared on t-shirts at last month’s Australian Open.
Discourse around Peng has been heavily censored in China and searches for her name on Weibo continue to show no recent search results.
Peng has not updated her account since the post was removed.
She told L'Equipe the post had caused a "huge misunderstanding”, and despite the concern around her welfare, her life since November had been “as it should be - nothing special”.
She also said she “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.”
The interview was conducted in Chinese and the paper agreed to publish Peng's responses without commentary, it said.
Shortly after the interview was published, the IOC released a statement saying Peng had met its president Thomas Bach for dinner on Saturday.
The IOC said Peng would attend several Winter Olympic events and she was planning to travel to Europe to visit the committee’s headquarters in Switzerland.
The in-person meeting in Beijing followed a series of telephone conversations with Peng over the past few months, the IOC said.
With additional reporting by Reuters.
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