A beach volleyball player who has been convicted of raping a young girl is set to represent the Netherlands at the Paris Olympics.
Steven van de Velde, who admitted to three counts of rape of a 12-year-old British girl, is set to compete with his volleyball partner Matthew Immers as one of two men’s Dutch beach volleyball teams next month.
Van de Velde travelled from Amsterdam to the UK and raped the schoolgirl in 2014, after the pair met over Facebook. Van de Velde was aware of the child’s age at the time, a court later heard.
The volleyball player was sentenced to four years in prison in March 2016 after admitting three counts of rape.
He was released after serving just one year of his sentence.
The Netherlands Olympic Committee (NOC) said in a statement van de Velde, now 29, has met “all qualification criteria for the Olympic Games”.
“Since 2018, Steven van de Velde has been participating in international beach volleyball tournaments again following an intensive, professionally supervised trajectory,” the statement read.
According to The Australian, Van de Velde has passed all probationary and psychological checks imposed by the Dutch Volleyball Federation (NeVoBo) and the Netherlands Olympic Committee, and continues to offer himself up for assessment.
The publication reports the British Olympic Association holds ‘grave concerns’ over the decision to allow
The International Olympic Committee, which governs the Olympics, stated the national Olympic committees are responsible for selection and it will not intervene.
“The nomination of individual team members, following qualification on the field of play, is the sole responsibility of each respective National Olympic Committee. Therefore, we would refer to the Dutch NOC for any further information,” it said in a statement, as per The Mirror.
In a NOC statement, van de Velde said: “I understand that in the run-up to the biggest sporting event in the world, this can attract the attention of international media.”
The 29-year-old previously spoke to Dutch media about the incident, saying he “can’t reverse” what happened.
“I will have to bear the consequences. It has been the biggest mistake of my life,” he said.
Van de Velde earlier told Dutch broadcaster NOS in 2018: “I made that choice in my life when I wasn’t ready, I was a teenager still figuring things out.”
“I was sort of lost and now I have so much more life experience, aside from just being incarcerated.
“Any form of help would have been very very helpful, maybe that’s what I would have told myself, seek help.”