Convicted sex offender competes at the Olympics

It is the most controversial nomination for the Olympics to date: Beach volleyball player Steven van der Velde will compete for the Netherlands in Paris. When this became known, there was an outcry in the international community. Because: Steven van der Velde is a convicted sex offender. At the age of 19, the now 29-year-old raped a 12-year-old girl. He was convicted in 2016 and has served his sentence.

Legally speaking, he has paid for his crime and should be able to do his job again. But does it have to be on the biggest and most prestigious sporting stage in the world? At the Olympic Games in Paris?

A person commits a crime, is sentenced for it and should then be given the chance to become part of society again. Otherwise we would have to lock up all criminals forever, with no prospect of reformation. But some crimes are morally more serious than others. A tax evader who spends a few years in prison and then represents his country as a professional athlete at the Olympic Games is legitimate.

Petition wants to disqualify van der Velde from the Olympics

Then there is a 19-year-old who traveled to the English city of Milton Keynes in 2014 to visit a twelve-year-old girl he had met on Facebook. When the mother was not at home, he gave the girl alcohol and raped her, according to several media reports. The court ruling confirms this: in 2016, van der Velde was found guilty in England and sentenced to four years in prison. In fact, the professional athlete only served thirteen months because in the Netherlands, sexual intercourse with a twelve-year-old is not automatically considered rape, unlike in England.

Since 2017, he has been playing beach volleyball again, and is now traveling to Paris with his new team partner Matthew Immers. When the nomination was announced, a petition was promptly launched on Change.org, demanding: “Disqualify Convicted Child Rapist Steven Van De Velde from the Olympics.”

Others have also publicly denounced this decision. For Survivors Trust, a British organisation that helps victims of sexual crimes, this is further proof of the “shocking tolerance we have towards child sexual abuse”.

She further told Sky News, “his lack of remorse and empathy for his victim is appalling and allowing his colleagues and the Olympic Committee to promote him to a young audience as an athlete to look up to is deeply disturbing.”

Ju’Riese Colon, CEO of the US Center for SafeSport, also told CNN that she was “deeply concerned that someone convicted of sexually assaulting a minor will be allowed to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games,” where many underage athletes will be taking part. “Participating in sport is a privilege, not a right,” she said.

Olympians should be role models

A privilege that comes with obligations, which are anchored, among other things, in a declaration that Olympic participants must sign. The seventh point is that they should act as role models. Many people agree that a convicted rapist does not fulfill this, whether he has served his sentence or not. For example, the US-British lawyer Ann Olivarius, who specializes in sexual harassment and abuse, commented on Platform X: “I would like to know how the Dutch association can believe that Steven van de Velde meets the seventh requirement for Olympic participants.”

The Dutch Volleyball Association and the Dutch Olympic Committee certainly seem to see him in this position. In a statement, the association said that van der Velde had proven himself to be “an exemplary professional and human being” and that there has been no reason to doubt him since his return. Van der Velde himself described the act as “the biggest mistake of his life” in an interview in 2018. Is this #himpathy at its best, as Olivarius calls it on X? In other words, excessive sympathy towards criminals?

Nobody wants to deny van der Velde the right to continue his career and build a life for himself again. But should we now applaud him, celebrate him as a role model and bestow the highest honour that can be bestowed on an athlete?

This is more than disrespectful to the victims of such crimes – and sets a fatal symbol in our society: that the medals of perpetrators are more important to us than the trauma of their victims.