The Netherlands Volleyball Association and Dutch Olympic organizers are standing by their decision to send a man convicted of rape to represent the Netherlands in beach volleyball at this summer’s Paris Olympics.
In 2014, Steven van de Velde, now 29, travelled to the UK and raped a 12-year-old girl he met on Facebook. In 2016, a British court sentenced him to four years in prison. A year later, he was transferred to the Netherlands, where his sentence was adjusted under Dutch law. In total, Mr van de Velde spent more than a year in prison.
The platoon association said he received professional counseling afterwards.
The Netherlands Olympic Committee and the Netherlands Volleyball Association allowed Van der Velde to compete on the advice of experts who said the chances of her committing another foul were very low, according to the association’s websites. Van der Velde resumed her beach volleyball career in 2017.
While there was outrage in the international news media about his participation in the Olympics, the matter did not attract much attention in the Netherlands, where the news media focused mainly on the international media and the way they covered the case.
“Especially abroad, there are reasons to revisit the past of the 29-year-old beach volleyball player,” the volleyball association wrote in a statement on its website.
Sara Alaoui, founder and director of the Safe Space Club, a nonprofit dedicated to helping victims of sexual abuse, said she was surprised by the lack of attention the story received compared with other, less important sports stories. (For example, Dutch news outlets covered the soccer player Memphis Depay.) Wear a headband In a recent game.
Mr. van der Velde has admitted to the crime and told Dutch news media it was the worst mistake of his life.
“It was a huge mistake, no one will deny that. There is nothing I can do about it,” Mr van der Velde told Dutch broadcaster NOS in 2018. “I can’t reverse it, so I have to bear the consequences.”
Ms. Alavi said she was disappointed by Mr. Vandevelde’s lack of remorse and self-reflection, which she said sent the message that “if you are a white, beautiful male, you don’t have to take much responsibility.”
“If you are truly sorry and this is the biggest mistake of your life, then you have to prove why you deserve another chance,” Ms. Alavi said. One way, she said, is to work with organizations that fight sexual abuse.
“I don’t understand how we are dealing with this in the Netherlands after the #MeToo movement,” she said. “We are talking about child abuse here.”
Olympic organizers were aware of Mr. van der Velde’s history and said in a statement that they had spent a lot of time talking to him.
“Now, when Van de Velde looks in the mirror, he sees a mature, happy man, married and the father of a beautiful son,” the Netherlands Volleyball Association (known as Nevobo in Dutch) wrote on its website.
“He has proven to be an exemplary professional and human being and there has been no reason to doubt him since his return,” Michel Everaert, the volleyball association’s director general, said in a statement.
Mr. Vandevelde is not the first Olympian to be convicted of a crime. Most notoriously, Tonya Harding qualified for the 1994 Winter Olympics U.S. figure skating team and was suspected of participating in an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan. Ms. Harding was allowed to compete, awkwardly on the same team as Ms. Kerrigan, and finished eighth. She later pleaded guilty to hindering prosecution, was fined and sentenced to probation and community service.
Bruce Kimball, a 1984 silver medalist in diving, was hoping to return to the U.S. Olympic team in 1988. Two weeks before the Olympic trials, he drove drunk and ran over a group of teenagers, killing two of them. Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the victims’ friends opposed his participation in the trials, but he was allowed to compete. He finished fourth and sixth in the two events, failed to make the U.S. team, and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Victor Mather Contribute to the report
