No amount of punishment to her assailant — not the four years he was sentenced to and certainly not the 13 months he served — can change that. What thoughts must she wake with every day? Let’s hope they’re serene, happy, forward-looking. But who’s to say?
The focus at the Paris Olympics is on the rapist. He is Steven van de Velde, and he is here representing the Netherlands in beach volleyball — in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, in a stunning setting that blends the thumping bass of a modern sport with the skyscraping ode to the French Revolution — because Dutch Olympic officials made a choice.
He had done his time, they said. He was remorseful, they said. He earned the spot, they said.
Asked about the optics of appearing to be protecting a child rapist, John van Vliet, a spokesman for the Dutch team, said, “We are protecting a convicted child rapist to do his sport as best as possible and for a tournament which he qualified for.”
Read those words again, if you can.
“We are protecting a convicted child rapist to do his sport as best as possible.”
On Sunday morning, under the first blue sky of these Games, van de Velde and his playing partner, Matthew Immers, took to the sandy court with the tower as its backdrop. The stands were nearly full. When the public address announcer introduced him — “At a ginormous 6-foot-6, making his Olympic debut, Mr. … Steven … van de Velde!” — a smattering of boos rippled through a venue that, every four years, is typically among the Games’ most buoyant.
“I didn’t hear it,” Immers said. “I think the crowd is also far away. So you hear a lot of cheering.”
In the first set, van de Velde, now 29, and Immers were on the cusp of winning, when their Italian counterparts …
Come on. None of this matters. This guy should not be here.
The review of the facts, and we’ll try to be brief: In 2014, when he was 19, van de Velde met an English girl on Facebook. He flew to her town northwest of London, raped her and then advised her to get a morning-after pill. When she tried, the clinic alerted authorities.
The judge in the case, upon sentencing van de Velde to four years, told him this was “plainly a career end.”
He served a year of his sentence in England before being transferred to the Netherlands. There he served another month.
From there … take it away, Dutch Olympic officials.
“Van de Velde has fully engaged with all the requirements and has met all the stringent risk assessment thresholds, checks and due diligence,” the Dutch Olympic Committee wrote in a statement before the competition. “Experts have stated that there is no risk of recidivism. Van de Velde has consistently remained transparent about the case which he refers to as the most significant misstep of his life. He deeply regrets the consequences of his actions for those involved. He has been open about the personal transformation he has undergone as a result.”
Yes, it’s possible to have second chances and to reform. Van de Velde has a wife and a child. He is free and living his life. Isn’t that enough?
“I think Steven is a really good example from how he is right now,” Immers said in English after their opening match. “I am enjoying it very much to play with him. What is in the past is in the past. He had his …” and he fumbled for a word here, before van Vliet, standing by his side, said, “punishment.”
“Punishment,” Immers picked up, “and now he’s really, really kind. For me, that’s a big example that you grew.”
Everyone is for growth. Should that include the right to seek gold, too?
“The lifelong consequences are for the child he raped,” the Brave Movement, a global organization that aims to end child sexual violence, wrote in an open letter about van de Velde’s case. “Perpetrators move on. Those they abuse are left searching for healing and justice. We need a world centered around survivors, not perpetrators.”
The International Olympic Committee said before the Games that the decision to allow van de Velde to compete was up to the Dutch. Dutch officials clearly knew this would be an issue; they arranged for van de Velde to stay outside the Athletes’ Village, and they do not require van de Velde to walk through the “mixed zone,” the area at each venue where athletes can be approached by the media. He has not spoken publicly.
“We are here to create an environment for all our athletes in which they can perform well,” van Vliet said. “We were aware that this was going to be a special situation, so we made our own measurements to make them play the best as they can in the environment which is best for them.”
The Netherlands has made other choices about whom it wants representing its country and whom it doesn’t. Joost Luiten, a 38-year-old veteran of the DP World Tour, met the qualifications to play in the Olympic men’s golf tournament. He wrote on social media that the Dutch federation wouldn’t send him because, he said, they didn’t feel he had a good chance of a high finish. He went to court and won — but by that point International Golf Federation officials had given his spot to another player.
We know whom the Dutch committee will make special arrangements for and whom it won’t.
On Sunday, van de Velde and Immers lost to two Italians. They next play a team from Chile on Wednesday. The focus will return.
But if that match crosses the television screen, forget the competition. Think of that girl, not the then-19-year-old who preyed on her. Think of the survivors of similar atrocities who could be triggered just by hearing his story and watching him perform. For them, the Olympics aren’t to be celebrated. They’re a reminder of their own suffering.
