A convicted child rapist who represented the Netherlands in beach volleyball at the Paris Olympics broke down in tears Tuesday while reflecting on his experience at the Games.
Steven van de Velde was booed during his matches which took place at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in the heart of the French capital. The 30-year-old’s participation at the Games was highly controversial given his conviction and status as a registered sex offender in the U.K.
In 2014, a then-19-year-old Van de Velde traveled to Britain to meet a 12-year-old girl he’d met on Facebook, fully aware of her age. In 2016, he pleaded guilty to raping the schoolgirl and was sentenced to four years in prison. Van de Velde served 12 months behind bars in Britain before being transferred to the Netherlands where he was released a month later.
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Dutch media reports Tuesday said the athlete wept while speaking to reporters about his experience in Paris. Asked if he’d considered not participating in the Games at all, Van de Velde answered: “I certainly thought about it, yes,” according to De Telegraaf.
Through tears, he mentioned a British tabloid article which included a picture of his wife. “That’s when I broke down,” Van de Velde said. “I did something wrong, ten years ago. I have to accept that. But hurting people around me—whether it’s [teammate Matthew Immers], my wife, my child... that just goes too far for me. That’s definitely a moment where I thought: Is this worth it?”
Michel Everaert, the general director of the Dutch Volleyball Association (Nevobo), also claimed Tuesday that the booing Van de Velde faced had been instigated by British newspapers.
“It’s just organized,” Everaert said when asked about how the booing increased during the Games, according to the Brabants Dagblad newspaper. “They stirred up the whole story, those English tabloids. They didn’t get what they wanted in the first match and then they just went around to incite people. And then also via social media.”
Van de Velde and Immers were knocked out of the Paris Games in a straight sets loss to Brazil in the round of 16.
“If I can speak for him, after the match we lost, we were disappointed,” Immers said after the defeat, according to the Associated Press. “But we said to each other: ‘Look what we did together. Look how hard we fought with all the attention.’ We stayed together. We cried together off the field and said, ‘OK, let’s just enjoy this moment.’ And we did that. So I’m happy we did it that way.”
