The playing partner of Steven van de Velde, the Dutch Olympian permitted to compete in beach volleyball at the Paris Games despite raping a 12-year-old British girl, has described him as being “like a second father to me”.
With attention on Van de Velde so intense that he has been stood down from talking to journalists here in Paris, Matthew Immers, the other half of the Netherlands pair, has mounted a staunch defence of his team-mate.
“I feel comfortable with him, we take good care of each other,” he said. “I’m 23, he’s 29. He’s also a kind of a second father to me, who supports me. Now we’re going to the Games and it has become a big thing. But everything else has stayed the same.”
The presence in Paris of Van de Velde, who in March 2016 admitted three counts of rape against a child he had met on Facebook, has sparked ferocious controversy. He had travelled from the Netherlands to the UK in August 2014, when he was 19, to meet his victim. While the judge sentencing him to four years in prison had told him that his Olympic ambitions were a “shattered dream”, he and Immers have since emerged as medal contenders at these Games as the 11th-ranked team in the world.
But despite victims’ advocacy groups reacting with horror to the selection of a convicted child rapist at the grandest show in sport, the Dutch delegation doubled down on his right to participate. “It’s a shame that people talk about him like that,” Immers said. “I know the Steven of today, and I’m happy about that. He’s a very good partner. He’s good company on and off the field, and that’s the most important thing for me.”
Pieter van den Hoogenband, the Olympic champion swimmer now serving as the Dutch chef de mission in Paris, also expressed bewilderment about the strength of the backlash. “He has been active in international sports, the beach volleyball world, for a long time,” he said. “He has played in World Cups, European Championships, but then you see that things are different around the Games. Things are exaggerated.”
Anticipating the global spotlight on Van de Velde once his competition begins on Sunday, in a purpose-built arena beside the Eiffel Tower, the Dutch team have removed him from interview duties and relocated him away from the athletes’ village. But a media blackout could prove difficult to enforce and expose the International Olympic Committee, as event organisers, to claims that they would be protecting a rapist. An IOC spokesperson said that they had no involvement in Van de Velde’s call-up and that there was “special extra safeguarding in place”.
Van de Velde’s involvement is supported by both the Dutch Olympic Committee and the country’s volleyball federation, who insist that he has met all qualification requirements and completed a closely-supervised path of rehabilitation. “We don’t have blinkers and we’re not closing our eyes,” said Van den Hoogenband, who stressed there had been “no question” of leaving the athlete behind. “But he’s a member of the team and he deserves our support. He has reacted well and level-headedly. We have to help him to be able to perform.”
The decision by the Dutch has drawn unequivocal condemnation elsewhere. Mhairi Maclennan, co-founder of Kyniska Advocacy, which works for the protection and respect of women in sport, said: “To have a convicted rapist representing their country on a global stage not only goes entirely against the Olympic ideals and commitments, but it shatters the IOC’s vision of building a ‘better world through sport’.”
Joanna Maranhao, coordinator of the Athletes’ Network for Safer Sports, said: “Athletes who compete at the Olympics are often perceived as heroes and role models – Van de Velde should not receive this honour.”
Immers’ comments also come after rival nations insisted they would not select athletes with criminal convictions because of existing selection policies, which are left to individual National Olympic Committees to determine.
“If an athlete or staff member had that conviction they would not be allowed to be a member of our team,” said Anna Meares, the Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist who is now Australia’s team chief, adding that she would not comment specifically on another team’s selection criteria and processes. “We have stringent policies on safeguarding within our team.”