At the Olympics after raping a 12-year-old girl: “I’m not a monster”

Beach volleyball champion Van de Velde will represent the Netherlands at the Games. He had been sentenced to 4 years, the judge told him: “Your sporting career ends here”

ROME – In 2014 he raped a 12-year-old child. In 2016 the English judge who sentenced him to 4 years in prison ruled: “Your sporting career is over”. In 2024 Steven van de Velde will represent the Netherlands at the Paris Games. His career is not over, not at all: at 29 years old Van de Velde is a beach volleyball champion, forming with Immer one of the strongest couples in the world. But it is also a moral dilemma for the IOC.

Van de Velde was convicted in March 2016 after admitting three counts of raping a little girl he met on Facebook. He had flown from the Netherlands to the UK in August 2014, when he was 19, to meet his victim. Judge Francis Sheridan ruled: “Before you came to this country you were training as a potential Olympian. Your hopes of representing your country are now a shattered dream.” “Your actions have ruined your life and, if you had never come to England and committed these crimes, you could have been a leader in your sport. A young, naive, silly little girl had the idea that you loved her. In reality you only knew her on the internet, you had never met her before and you were fully aware of the age difference”.

After he was extradited, his defense lawyer, Linda Strudwick said: “The headlines say it all: sexual monster. It’s clearly the end of his career for him.” The victim then committed acts of self-harm and attempted suicide.

But Van de Velde, who was released after serving just 12 months in a Dutch prison, was allowed to rehabilitate, and will go to the Paris Games together with Matthew Immers. For the International Olympic Committee it’s a big problem. Every athlete participating in the Olympics is required to sign an Athlete Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities, point seven of which requires them to “act as a role model.” He has always defended himself: “I am not a pedophile, nor a monster.”

The Dutch Olympic Committee has not yet commented on Van de Velde’s qualification for Paris, nor has the IOC.