Convicted child molester Steven van de Velde receives special treatment at the Olympic Games

At the 2024 Olympic Games, convicted child abuser Steven van de Velde has not only been allowed to participate, but will now also receive special treatment and can avoid contact with the media and other athletes.

Outrage erupted when the Dutch Olympic Committee selected sex offender van de Velde to represent the Netherlands in men’s beach volleyball at the Paris Olympics. In 2014, when van de Velde was 19, he began corresponding with a 12-year-old girl on Facebook and continued communicating even after he learned her age. He eventually travelled from the Netherlands to England to meet her and raped her. He pleaded guilty to three counts of child rape and was sentenced to four years in prison, but only served one year. Almost immediately after his release, the Dutch Volleyball Association allowed him to continue his volleyball career without consequences and vehemently supported his selection for the Olympics.

Several sports advocacy groups issued an open letter calling on the Olympics to immediately disqualify van de Velde, while a petition calling for his removal garnered over 120,000 signatures. The letter and petition pointed out that he had shown no remorse for his actions and would not even admit to having committed a crime. Rather, they described his act as a minor mistake he made as a “teenager who was still figuring things out.” However, the Olympics failed to disqualify him. Now, not only is a convicted child molester competing in the Paris Olympics, but he is also receiving special treatment.

The Olympics are trying to “protect” Steven van de Velde

There are reports that the Olympics are doing everything they can to accommodate van de Velde and ensure that he is separated from the media and other athletes. On the one hand, if he is allowed to be there at all, he must should separated from the other athletes for their protection, considering that underage athletes also participate in the Olympic Games. But what is strange is that the Dutch are taking these measures to himViewers noticed that van de Velde was exempt from interviews and other media appearances, even though this is an obligation for the majority of Olympic athletes.

Accordingly The sunDutch adviser John van Vliet said they would protect him so he could “play his sport as well as possible”. However, it is not just the Dutch. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed the Netherlands to host van de Velde and “create an environment that is best for them and their performance”. He was even provided with three bodyguards to accompany him for his protection during the Games. While most athletes stay in the terrible living conditions of the Olympic Village because it is the cheapest option, van Vliet confirmed that they had secured special sleeping quarters for van de Velde outside the village.

The volleyball player even uses separate entrances and exits than his team members to avoid the “mixed zone” where the press is stationed. However, the IOC defended this decision, arguing that while teams are required to cross the mixed zone and attend media, not every single team member has to do so.

But no matter how the IOC and the Netherlands twist and turn the matter, they are shielding van de Velde from the media to prevent him from being scrutinised or embarrassed in the slightest for the serious crimes he has committed.

The special treatment that van de Velde is receiving extends even beyond Olympic officials. His teammate Matthew Immers gushed that van de Velde is now a good person and expressed confusion as to why “so much attention” was being focused on his gruesome crime. Meanwhile, while van de Velde was booed sporadically during his first Olympic game, the boos were quickly drowned out by cheers as his home country celebrated him. The Olympics have not only declared that a convicted child molester can be celebrated as an Olympian, but that the Games will actually do everything they can to protect sex offenders.

Again, the only people who need protection are the women and underage athletes who are forced to compete with a convicted sex offender. her Protection, he should have been blocked from the Olympic Village and had to find accommodation himself, rather than the Dutch making special arrangements for him. He was to be supervised at all times by a supervisor, not three bodyguards. to protect him. It is well known that all athletes who accept the privilege of participating in the Olympic Games have to contend with critical scrutiny and pressure from the media. It is therefore unclear why van de Velde receives all the privileges and no disadvantages.