The Netherlands Volleyball Association and Dutch Olympic organizers are standing by their decision to send a man convicted of rape to this summer’s Paris Olympics to represent the Netherlands in beach volleyball.
In 2014, the man, Steven van de Velde, now 29, traveled to England, where he raped a 12-year-old girl he had met on Facebook. A British court sentenced him in 2016 to four years in prison. After a year, he was transferred to the Netherlands, where his sentence was adjusted according to Dutch law. In total, Mr van de Velde spent just over a year in prison.
She then received professional counseling, the volleyball association said.
The Dutch Olympic Committee and the Netherlands Volleyball Federation are allowing Mr van de Velde to compete based on the advice of experts who say they have judged the likelihood of a repeat offense to be very low, according to the association’s website. Mr van de Velde resumed his beach volleyball career in 2017.
While the international media covered his participation in the Olympics with a sense of outrage, the story did not gain much traction in the Netherlands. The Dutch news media heavily reported on the international media and how they covered the case.
“Particularly abroad, there was reason to rekindle 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 that works with victims of sexual abuse, said she was surprised by the lack of attention this story received compared to other, less consequential, sports news. (For example, Dutch media covered soccer player Memphis Depay wearing a headband during a recent match.)
Mr van de Velde admitted the crime and told Dutch media it was the worst mistake of his life.
“It’s a huge mistake, no one will deny it. I can’t do anything about it anymore,” Mr van de Velde said in a 2018 interview with Dutch broadcaster NOS. “I can’t reverse it, so I’ll have to face the consequences.”
Ms Alaoui said she was disappointed by what she called a lack of remorse and introspection from Mr van de Velde. It sends the message that “if you’re a white Adonis, you have less to answer for,” he said.
“If you are truly sorry and this is the biggest mistake of your life, then you have to show why you deserve a second chance,” Ms Alaoui said. One way would be to work with organizations that fight sexual abuse, he said.
“I don’t understand that this is how we handle this in the Netherlands after MeToo,” he said. “We’re talking about child abuse here.”
Olympiakos organizers were aware of Mr van de Velde’s history and said in their statement that they had spent a lot of time talking to him.
“When van de Velde now looks in the mirror, he sees a mature and happy man, married and the father of a beautiful son,” the Dutch Volleyball Association, called Nevobo in Dutch, wrote on its website.
Michel Everaert, director general of the volleyball federation, said in a statement: “He is proving to be an exemplary professional and human being and there is no reason to doubt him since his return.”
Mr van de Velde is not the first Olympian to be convicted of a crime. Most notoriously, Tonya Harding qualified for the United States figure skating team at the 1994 Winter Olympics and was suspected of involvement in an attack on an opponent, Nancy Kerrigan. Ms Harding was cleared to compete, awkwardly in the same team as Ms Kerrigan, and placed eighth. She later pleaded guilty to hindering prosecution and was fined and sentenced to probation and community service.
Bruce Kimball was a silver medalist in diving in 1984 and hoped to return to the US Olympic team in 1988. Two weeks before the Olympic trials, he hit a group of teenagers while driving drunk, killing two of them. Mothers Against Drunk Driving and friends of the victims objected to his participation in the trials, but he was allowed to compete. He finished fourth and sixth in his two events, failing to make the team and eventually serving four years in prison.
Victor Mather contributed to the report
