With the crowd whistling and booing every time he served the ball, Dutch Olympian Steven van de Velde advanced on Friday to the knockout round in beach volleyball in Paris.
Convicted of raping a 12-year-old school girl in 2016, Van de Velde and his teammate Matthew Immers lost their final match in the preliminary competition to Norway, but still qualified to compete in playoffs on Sunday, where they will face Brazil.
Van de Velde, now 29, served 13 months in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of raping a British girl he met on Facebook (and later in person, after traveling to the United Kingdom) in 2014. He was 19 at the time. He served 12 months in the UK and was then extradited to the Netherlands, where he was released after one month because of more lenient underage sex laws. Van de Velde’s name remains on the UK’s list of registered sex offenders.
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Although victims’ advocacy groups have called for van de Velde’s exclusion from the Olympics, the Dutch team has stood by him, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said it lacks authority to block him from competing.
After his match on Friday, van de Velde avoided the media. The Dutch team does not allow him to talk to the press—or live in the athletes’ village.
His teammate Immers spoke with reporters, however. “We’re making the best of it, and we’re really happy at the end of the match,” Immers said, adding, “We knew before the match we gave everything... And that’s what we want to do every game, give everything and play our game.”
Despite their 1-2 record so far, the Dutch team won a three-way tiebreaker to guarantee their advance to the knockout rounds. “We lost the match, but we’re second in the pool,” Immers said. “Overall, I think we played really good.”
A second individual convicted of child sex abuse has also been identified as present in Paris for the Games. British newspaper The Times reported Saturday that 65-year-old triathlon coach Brett Sutton received Olympic accreditation from China. Sutton, who The Times noted has been “banned from coaching by several federations,” was convicted in 1999 on five charges of sexual abuse against a 13-year-old girl in his native Australia. The incidents, which a judge described as “gross” and “inexcusable,” took place in the 1980s.
