The crisis over the whereabouts of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, which has sparked a global outcry, “may spin out of control” and push the International Olympic Committee into taking a harder line with Beijing, an Olympics official warned…

If there is no proper investigation into Peng’s sexual assault allegations, the Women’s Tennis Association is willing to pull tournaments out of China, potentially losing hundreds of millions of dollars, its chairman said Thursday.

The IOC has not indicated that it intends to make a similar move with the 2022 Beijing Games, which could jeopardize billions of dollars from one of the world’s biggest sports events. Its press office has said that “quiet diplomacy offers the best opportunity to find a solution.”