Steven van de Velde will characterize the Netherlands within the Olympics subsequent month, eight years after being convicted of raping a 12-year-old.
In 2014 and fewer than per week earlier than his nineteenth birthday, Van de Velde flew to England to satisfy the sufferer, the place he raped her after giving her alcohol. He first met the sufferer on Facebook.
He was sentenced to 4 years in jail two years later however was launched after only one 12 months. He is a registered intercourse offender within the U.Okay. for the remainder of his life, and the sufferer has since self-harmed and as soon as overdosed.
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Steven van de Velde saves the ball throughout the males’s ultimate match between Evandro Goncalves Oliveira Jr. and Arthur Diego Mariano Lanci of Brazil and van de Velde and Matthew Immers of the Netherlands on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 2024 in Brasilia, Brazil, May 5, 2024. (Lucio Tavora/Xinhua through Getty Images)
“I can not reverse it, so I must bear the results. It has been the largest mistake of my life,” he stated in 2018.
He returned to competing in worldwide competitions shortly after his launch from jail in 2017. Now, the Dutch volleyball federation, Nevobo, says van de Velde “meets all of the qualification necessities for the Olympic Games and is due to this fact a part of the staff.”
“He was convicted on the time in line with English regulation, and he has served his sentence. From then on, we’ve got been in fixed contact with Steven, who has now been totally reintegrated into the Dutch volleyball group,” Nevobo said in a statement.
“He is proving to be an exemplary skilled and human being, and there was no motive to doubt him since his return. We totally help him and his participation in Paris, which he and [teammate] Matthew [Immers] have earned.”
Matthew Immers and Steven van de Velde of the Netherlands throughout the Beach World Championships Tlaxcala 2023 at Tlaxcala Plaza de Toros Oct. 12, 2023, in Tlaxcala, Mexico. (Pablo Morano/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
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“Already since 2017, Steven van de Velde — after an intensive professionally supervised course of with, amongst others, the probation service — is as soon as once more taking part in worldwide seashore volleyball tournaments,” the Dutch Olympic committee, NOC*NSF, stated in its personal assertion.
“At the time, the concerns and circumstances for return to top-level sports activities have been decided by each Nevobo and NOC*NSF partly on the idea of the Guideline Integrity History of NOC*NSF, which units out, amongst different issues, the circumstances underneath which athletes in top-level sports activities can return after a conviction.”
It ought to be famous that the Dutch usually are not sending a number of golfers who certified for Paris after their Olympic committee stated their world rankings recommend they might not have a sensible likelihood to compete.
The Netherlands Golf Federation stated in an announcement Tuesday it offered “intensive arguments and information” in a June 14 assembly with the Dutch committee, hopeful of exhibiting distinctive variations in golf in contrast with different sports activities.
Steven van de Velde of the Netherlands throughout the Beach World Championships Tlaxcala 2023 at Tlaxcala Plaza de Toros Oct. 11, 2023, in Tlaxcala, Mexico. (Pablo Morano/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
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“According to them, it has not been demonstrated that there’s a cheap likelihood of a top-eight rating throughout the Olympic Games,” the assertion stated.
The Netherlands’ finest end in males’s seashore volleyball on the Olympics was a bronze medal in 2016.
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
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