Convicted child rapist selected to represent Netherlands at Paris Olympics
A convicted child rapist has been selected to represent the Netherlands at the Olympic Games.
Steven van de Velde will head to Paris to represent the country in beach volleyball next month.
But his selection has caused angst given he plead guilty to three counts of rape in 2014 and was sentenced to four years in jail.
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Van de Velde was released after one year in prison, having been convicted in 2016.
The now-29-year-old admitted to meeting the then-12-year-old on Facebook before travelling from Amsterdam to England to meet her in person, then raped her. He was aware of the child's age.
The sentencing judge in 2016 labelled Van de Velde's Olympic aspirations a "shattered dream" due to the conviction.
Netherlands beach volleyball player Steven Van De Velde. Xinhua News Agency via Getty Ima
Instead the Netherlands Olympic Committee (NOC) have reignited that dream and picked him to represent them on the world stage.
"Since 2018, Steven van de Velde has been participating in international beach volleyball tournaments again following an intensive, professionally supervised trajectory," the NOC said in a statement.
A report in The Australian claims the British Olympic Committee is uncomfortable with the Van de Velde selection.
The International Olympic Committee allows each nation to select its own athletes and does not veto any picks.
In an interview in 2018, Van de Velde said, "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."
