They think it’s all over – but it is now. “What is she on about?” I hear you ask. The Olympics, of course. What else? So, the Paris Olympics of 2024 departed the French shores like a bat out of hell. I’m thinking of Tom Cruise. Did you see him go on that motorbike, with the Olympic flag flying through the air? Taking it across land and seas all the way to the City of Angels – Los Angeles, for the 2028 Games. Mission Possible, eh?
Anyway, the medals are all done and dusted. The party has left town and what are we left with? I will tell you what we are left with. We are left with a situation – of sorts.
Following my last post about the Canadian author Alice Munro, I have given Steven van de Velde some thought. Steven van de Velde, as some of you may know, was a member of the Dutch beach volleyball team taking part in the Paris Olympic Games. The thing about him is that he is a convicted child rapist.
In 2016, when he was 19, Steven van de Velde, having pled guilty, was sentenced to a four-year jail term in the UK for raping a 12-year-old girl, a girl he’d met on Facebook. In 2014 he had flown to England to meet her in Milton Keynes, knowing full well that she was a girl of twelve. Having been convicted of rape, he served 12 months in an English prison before being transferred to the Netherlands where he was released after serving a further month.
Suffice it to say, van de Velde’s inclusion in the Netherlands Olympic team caused quite a stir and a bit of a backlash. The burning question on most people’s lips was should a convicted child rapist (a paedophile, as some in Twitterland have described him) be allowed to partake in the Olympic Games?
Even a 90,000-strong petition to disqualify van de Velde was apparently ignored by Olympic chiefs. However, the Netherlands Olympisch Comite*Nederlandse Sport Federatie (NOC*NSF) went to great pains to point out firstly that Steven van de Velde was not a paedophile and secondly that it had ‘put in place “concrete measures” to ensure a safe sporting environment for all Olympics participants in light of van de Velde’s participation’. They also said that Steven van de Velde would not be staying in the Olympic Village.
The NOC*NSF also went on to say that Steven van de Velde regrets the consequences of his actions and has fully engaged with all requirements and had met all the stringent risk assessment thresholds, checks and due diligence and there was no risk of re-offending.
This then begs the question – is that enough? If a person has committed a serious crime and has done the time, should or shouldn’t they be allowed to get on with their lives and participate fully in life, as much as they are allowed to, or will they forever be a criminal and a social outcast?
