Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai was spotted in the crowd at the Beijing Olympics figure skating venue on Monday following her recent weeks-long disappearance from public view after she made sexual assault allegations against a powerful government official.
A Kyodo News photographer captured images of Peng walking in the grandstands at the Capital Indoor Stadium, where the team figure skating event was being contested.
Peng was in the company of a man and a woman and was seen snapping photos of the venue with a smartphone.
On the same day, the International Olympic Committee said its President Thomas Bach had a face-to-face meeting with Peng, whose welfare became a concern after she aired now-deleted sexual abuse accusations against China's former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.
As per a statement released by the IOC, the meeting took place on Saturday over dinner at the Olympic Club in Beijing. Bach was joined by Kirsty Coventry, the former chair of the IOC Athletes' Commission and an IOC member.
Ahead of the IOC's statement, Peng told French sports daily L'Equipe in an interview published on Monday that she never accused anyone of sexual assault, and that she deleted the Weibo post that appeared to make such an allegation.
She also denied that she ever disappeared.
Peng made the allegations in the deleted social media post against Gaoli in November.
The Peng scandal became a diplomatic headache for China, with the Women's Tennis Association pulling out of the nation and some of the world's most famous tennis players using the Twitter hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai to cast light on her situation.
Bach said in a press conference on Thursday the IOC aims to "find out to see if she wants to have an inquiry (into the incident) and, of course, we would support her in this."
"But this has to be her decision, it is her life, it is her allegation," he said.
According to the IOC, the three-time Olympian informed Bach that she would attend several events at the Beijing Games over the coming days.
On Saturday evening, Peng and Coventry attended the mixed curling match between China and Norway, the IOC said.
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