Dutch Child Rapist Is Competing in Olympics

Beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde will compete in the Paris Olympics, but he won't be staying in the athletes village, and he won't be talking to reporters, as per the Dutch Olympic Committee. That's because the 29-year-old competitor from the Netherlands served time in prison for raping a 12-year-old girl in 2014, reports the Athletic.

• The crime: In 2016, van de Velde confessed to flying to the UK to meet and rape the child he'd been talking to online for several months. He was busted after he told the girl to get the morning-after pill and the clinic she tried to acquire it from notified authorities due to her age. Van de Velde was sentenced to four years; he served 13 months after being transferred back to the Netherlands. He's registered as a sex offender in the UK.

• Aftermath: A year after his release, van de Velde said in an interview that he'd still been "figuring things out" when the assault took place (he was 19 at the time). "I was sort of lost and now I have so much more life experience," he said. He went on to continue playing volleyball internationally, and married in 2022. He and his wife, German volleyball player Kim van de Velde, have a 2-year-old son.
• Van de Velde now: "I cannot reverse it, so I will have to bear the consequences. It has been the biggest mistake of my life," he said last month, per the AP.
• Dutch Olympic Committee: The group says that van de Velde has gone through an "extensive rehabilitation program" and that it's confident he won't be a repeat offender, per the Athletic. "He is proving to be an exemplary professional and human being and there has been no reason to doubt him since his return," says Michel Everaert, general director of the Dutch Volleyball Federation.
• IOC probe? The Guardian reports that the group is now facing calls for an investigation, with the head of Rape Crisis England & Wales calling van de Velde's inclusion "irresponsible." "If you can rape a child and still compete in the Olympics, despite all athletes signing a declaration promising to be a role model, that is just shocking," says Ciara Bergman. A petition with more than 80,000 signatures is circulating, calling on the IOC to not allow sex offenders to compete.

(More Olympics stories.)