No worries! Member Dick Pound says that the IOC has concluded that vanished tennis star Peng Shuai is totally 'fine' and not possibly in prison or dead

Sarah D | 10:17 AM on December 01, 2021

Good news, everyone! We still have no idea exactly what happened to Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, but the International Olympic Committee is apparently feeling pretty confident that she’s juuuuuuuuust fine:

Long-time International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound has said that the "unanimous conclusion" by those on a call with Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai is that she is "fine." https://t.co/vqhXR9WzPN

— CNN (@CNN) December 1, 2021

More from CNN:

On November 21, the IOC said in a statement that its president, Thomas Bach, had a 30-minute video call with three-time Olympian Peng, joined by a Chinese sports official and an IOC official.

The statement said that, during the call, Peng appeared to be “doing fine” and was “relaxed,” saying she “would like to have her privacy respected.” The IOC did not explain how the video call with Peng had been organized and has not made the video publicly available.

…

When asked on how he can ever be sure Peng Shuai’s appearances aren’t staged, [IOC member Dick Pound], who has not seen footage of the call, told CNN’s Erin Burnett: “There are lots of countries where you can’t easily leave the country. I think a lot of that is speculation.”

Speaking of those on the call, he said: “What we have is hard evidence as we can have and feel. These are people who have dealt with athletes and dealt with pressure.”

The Chinese government has also dealt with athletes and dealt with pressure. They’ve also dealt with doctors, writers, intellectuals, and anyone else who shines a critical light on the Chinese government.

The IOC bending over backwards for China amounts to nothing short of an international scandal, and no country that claims to give a damn about human rights should participate in the travesty that is the Beijing Olympics. Or maybe any Olympics at all, if it’s the IOC’s official policy that murderous authoritarian regimes should be able to disappear people whenever they feel like it.