Convicted child molester gets starting place for Dutch volleyball team at Olympics in Paris

FILE – Netherlands’ Steven Van de Velde (L) during the Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 volleyball final in Brasilia, Brazil, May 5, 2024. (Photo by EVARISTO SA / AFP)

A Dutch volleyball player who was convicted of raping an underage girl in 2016 has been selected under controversial circumstances to represent the Netherlands at the Olympic beach volleyball competitions in Paris.

Steven van de Velde, now 29, was sentenced to four years in prison after admitting three counts of rape of a 12-year-old girl, according to the British newspaper The Telegraph.

He served part of his sentence in the UK and was then transferred to the Netherlands, where he was eventually released and began playing volleyball again in 2017.

“We know Steven’s history,” Michel Everaert, general director of the Dutch Volleyball Association (Nevobo), said in a statement.

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“He was convicted under English law at the time and has served his sentence,” Everaert added.

Nevobo and the Dutch Olympic Committee consulted experts who concluded that Van de Velde’s chances of relapsing were “zero”.

The Telegraph quoted British judge Francis Sheridan as saying in his verdict: “Your hopes of representing your country are now a shattered dream.”

But Everaert said Van de Velde had been “fully reintegrated into the Dutch volleyball community.”

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“He is proving to be an exemplary professional and human being and there has been no reason to doubt him since his return.”

The association also quoted the player himself as admitting that he had made “the biggest mistake of my young life at that time.”

“I can’t undo it, so I will have to face the consequences,” he was quoted as saying.

His selection seems to have attracted more attention outside the Netherlands than in the country’s media.

The daily newspaper AD reported that there had been an “uproar” in the foreign media about Van de Velde.

“I understand that this may attract international media attention ahead of the biggest sporting event in the world,” the player told his association.