Steven van de Velde of the Netherlands competes during the beach volleyball match between the Netherlands and Italy at Eiffel Tower Stadium at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, on July 28.Louise Delmotte/The Associated Press
Beach volleyball is supposed to be one of the fun sports of the Olympics, where athletes compete in a party-like atmosphere with thumping music and lots of sand and suntan lotion.
Paris 2024 organizers hoped to capture the free-wheeling mood by holding the competition in a makeshift beach at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. But the vibe has been overshadowed by the participation of Steven van de Velde, a Dutch player who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old British girl in 2016.
Van de Velde, 29, was sentenced to four years in prison and served 12 months in Britain before being sent to the Netherlands where he spent another month in jail. He resumed his playing career a few months after his release and he and his playing partner, Matthew Immers, are ranked 10th in the world.
His inclusion on the Dutch team at the Olympics has caused an outcry among organizations that work with victims of sexual assault, and many say he shouldn’t be allowed to compete at the Olympics because it creates a sense of impunity. Others, including Dutch volleyball officials, argue that van de Velde has been punished and deserves a second chance.
Van de Velde and Immers played their first match on Sunday and many people watching had mixed views on whether van de Velde should be there. Several boos could be heard when he was introduced to the crowd and some fans cheered every time he missed a shot. They lost 2-1 to a team from Italy but they still have at least two more matches in the preliminary round.
“He shouldn’t be here,” said Andrea Alcantara, who is from Peru but lives in London. “He has benefited only because he is an athlete. He doesn’t represent the values of the Olympics.”
Alexandre Jacques, who is from Vallée-Jonction, Que., had a similar reaction. “He shouldn’t play,” Jacques said. “For me there is no second chance for something like that.”
That view wasn’t shared by Marloes van Gelderen, a Dutch fan who came to the stadium on Sunday with a Netherlands T-shirt but was too afraid to put it on for fear of the reaction. She acknowledged that what van de Velde did was unforgivable, but she still felt he should be allowed to compete.
“This is how he makes his living so why shouldn’t he be able to do that? A lot of people get out of jail and are allowed to make a living,” she said.
Rita Buikema, who is also a Dutch fan, said he’d been punished enough. “It’s difficult, I agree,” she said. “But everyone deserves a second chance.”
Marie Monet, a French fan, said she was conflicted about van de Velde. “Maybe it’s good in a way that he’s here,” she added. “To show people in this situation that it’s possible to really recover and do something great.”
Those who work with the victims of sexual assault say the circumstances of van de Velde’s case are disturbing.
He was a 19-year-old rising star of beach volleyball when he met the girl through Facebook. The court heard that van de Velde made her feel special and that he flew to England from Amsterdam for one day to meet her in 2014, knowing how old she was. They met in a park after the girl lied to her parents about going to a friend’s house.
Before he left, van de Velde advised her to get a morning-after pill and when she went to a family planning clinic near her home in Milton Keynes, staff alerted her parents, who called the police.
Van de Velde was extradited to Britain and in 2016 he pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault. He’s now married to a former police officer, and they have a child. But he remains on the UK’s sex-offenders register and he’s barred by a British court from speaking to the girl he assaulted.
In an interview on Dutch television in 2018, he denied that he was a pedophile and suggested the girl had given her consent. ‘’It’s a huge mistake, nobody would deny that. I can’t do anything about that anymore,’’ he said.
Dutch officials and Immers have stood by the player. “He is proving to be an exemplary professional and human being and there has been no reason to doubt him since his return,” the Dutch volleyball federation said in a statement.
After Sunday’s match, Immers said the controversy had been a distraction and that they’ve been disappointed at all the attention the case has received. He added that he had no second thoughts about competing with van de Velde. “I know the guy for three, four years,” he said. “I’m enjoying it very much to play with him. What’s in the past is in the past. He had his punishment and now he’s really kind. For me that’s a big example that you grow, that you learned a lot.”
John van Vliet, a spokesman for the Dutch Olympic team, said officials decided that van de Velde would stay in a hotel instead of at the athletes village and that he would not walk through the mix zone after matches where athletes are questioned by reporters. That is usually mandatory for all athletes, but van Vliet said the International Olympic Committee agreed to the condition. The IOC has referred questions about van de Velde to the Dutch team.
“The main reason is, we want to talk about sports, especially him. We are very much aware that if we bring out Steven here, it won’t be about his sport or his performance,” van Vleit said Sunday in the mix zone.
When asked why the Dutch team was protecting a child molester, van Vliet replied: “We are protecting a convicted child rapist, yes, to do his sport as best as possible and for a tournament which he qualified for.”
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