Folks made positive Dutch seaside volleyball participant Steven van de Velde didn’t get a heat welcome when he stepped onto the courtroom for the primary time on the Paris Olympics on Sunday.
In video from forward of the match, the convicted youngster rapist was met with loud boos and a small scattering of applause as he and Netherlands teammate Matthew Immers have been launched earlier than dealing with off towards Italy.
The pair would go on to lose. Van de Velde’s subsequent match is on Wednesday towards Chile.
Earlier than the Paris Video games started, there was already controversy over the Netherlands’ choice to incorporate van de Velde on its Olympic crew.
The athlete was sentenced to 4 years in jail in 2016 after admitting to raping a 12-year-old British woman who he traveled from Amsterdam to England to satisfy when he was 19.
He was caught when the minor tried to acquire the morning-after capsule, prompting the healthcare clinic to alert her household and the authorities.
Van de Velde ended up serving solely 13 months earlier than being launched in 2017. His title stays on the UK’s intercourse offender registry.
David Davies – PA Photos through Getty Photos
Although there have been calls to drop the athlete from its crew, the Dutch Olympic Committee defended its choice to let van de Velde play, saying in an announcement that “a lot has happened since” the 2016 assault and that he had “grown and positively changed his life,” in keeping with The Athletic.
“We are deeply aware that the renewed publicity about Steven van de Velde is causing a lot of emotion, which we fully understand, as the events at that time were very serious,” the assertion stated.
Nevertheless, the committee agreed to not let him keep within the Olympic Village with different athletes.
Van de Velde has refused to handle the media throughout his time in Paris however appeared to downplay his actions in interviews after his launch from jail.
“I have been branded as a sex monster, as a paedophile,” he instructed Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad in 2017, per The Athletic. “That I am not — really not.”
