BEIJING —

Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai has told a French newspaper that international concern over her well-being is based on “an enormous misunderstanding” and she denied having accused a Chinese official of sexual assault.

L’Equipe, which specializes in sports news, published the interview Monday. The publication said it spoke to the tennis player a day earlier in a Beijing hotel in an hour-long interview organized through China’s Olympic committee.

Also Monday, the International Olympic Committee released a statement saying IOC President Thomas Bach had dinner with Peng on Saturday, and she attended the China-Norway curling match with IOC member Kirsty Coventry.

The newspaper said it had to submit questions in advance and that a Chinese Olympic committee official sat in on the discussion and translated her comments from Chinese.

The newspaper published her comments verbatim – which it said was another pre-condition for interview – in question-and-answer form.

L’Equipe asked Peng about a post in November on her verified account on a leading Chinese social media platform, Weibo, which kicked off a storm of international concern about her.

In that post, Peng wrote that Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier and member of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, had forced her to have sex despite repeated refusals. Her post also said they had sex once seven years ago and she had feelings for him after that.

Peng briefly disappeared from public view, then appeared at some promotional appearances arranged by the government. The interview with L'Equipe was her first sit-down discussion with non-Chinese media since the accusation.

But speaking to L'Equipe, Peng denied having accused Zhang of assault.

“Sexual assault? I never said that anyone made me submit to a sexual assault,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.

“This post resulted in an enormous misunderstanding from the outside world,” she also said. “My wish is that the meaning of this post no longer be skewed.”

The summer Olympics are one month away, but the road to clinching gold has been anything but smooth. 

Hundreds of protesters in Tokyo say they want to see the games canceled over concerns of spreading COVID-19.

The Japanese government lifted emergency coronavirus measures in Tokyo just five weeks before the games. 

The country’s prime minister cited declining case numbers and easing strain on the country’s health care system. 

But people like Hanawa, a 70-year-old protester, question the move,  saying “cases were around 200 during the first state of emergency. Now there are 400 to 500 cases. Why is Japan lifting it?” 

As of Wednesday, about 7% of people in Japan are fully vaccinated, and more than 14,000 people have died from COVID-19. It’s good by global standards, but worse than many Asian neighbors.

But with billions of dollars on the line, the International Olympic Committee has said the games will go on. 

The Tokyo 2020 organizing committee said  ‘it has no choice’ but to hold a re-lottery for games tickets. 

The committee decided only 10,000 spectators could attend the games, forcing fans who already had tickets to give them up.  

Those who wind up with a ticket, “will have to wear a mask. They'll have to social distance. They'll be asked not to cheer, and they're being asked to leave immediately afterwards, not go to bars, not go to cafes, to go home.”

Officials say there’s a chance fans could be barred if coronavirus cases rise again. 

This story originally reported by Lauren Magarino on Newsy.com