People made sure Dutch beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde didn’t get a warm welcome when he stepped onto the court for the first time at the Paris Olympics on Sunday.
In video from ahead of the match, the convicted child rapist was met with loud boos and a small scattering of applause as he and Netherlands teammate Matthew Immers were introduced before facing off against Italy.
The pair would go on to lose. Van de Velde’s next match is on Wednesday against Chile.
Before the Paris Games began, there was already controversy over the Netherlands’ decision to include van de Velde on its Olympic team.
The athlete was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 after admitting to raping a 12-year-old British girl who he traveled from Amsterdam to England to meet when he was 19.
He was caught when the minor tried to obtain the morning-after pill, prompting the healthcare clinic to alert her family and the authorities.
Van de Velde ended up serving only 13 months before being released in 2017. His name remains on the United Kingdom’s sex offender registry.
David Davies – PA Images via Getty Images
Though there were calls to drop the athlete from its team, the Dutch Olympic Committee defended its decision to let van de Velde play, saying in a statement that “a lot has happened since” the 2016 assault and that he had “grown and positively changed his life,” according to The Athletic.
“We are deeply aware that the renewed publicity about Steven van de Velde is causing a lot of emotion, which we fully understand, as the events at that time were very serious,” the statement said.
However, the committee agreed not to let him stay in the Olympic Village with other athletes.
Van de Velde has refused to address the media during his time in Paris but seemed to downplay his actions in interviews after his release from prison.
“I have been branded as a sex monster, as a paedophile,” he told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad in 2017, per The Athletic. “That I am not — really not.”
