{"id":406792,"date":"2024-06-27T04:59:27","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T04:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=406792"},"modified":"2024-06-27T06:05:19","modified_gmt":"2024-06-27T06:05:19","slug":"convicted-child-rapist-picked-for-olympics-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=406792","title":{"rendered":"Convicted child rapist picked for Olympics team"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\ufeff convicted child rapist has been selected to represent the Netherlands<\/a> at the Olympic Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Steven van de Velde will head to Paris to represent the country in beach volleyball next month.<\/p>\n

But his selection has caused angst given he \ufeffplead guilty to three counts of rape in 2014 and was sentenced to four years in jail.<\/p>\n

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Van de Velde was released after one year in prison, having been convicted in 2016.<\/p>\n

\ufeffThe now-29-year-old admitted to meeting the then-12-year-old on Facebook before travelling from Amsterdam to England to meet her in person, then raped her. He was aware of the child's age.<\/p>\n

The sentencing judge in 2016 labelled Van de Velde's Olympic aspirations a "shattered dream" due to the conviction.<\/p>\n

\"Netherlands<\/p>\n

Instead the Netherlands Olympic Committee (NOC) have \ufeffreignited that dream and picked him to represent them on the world stage.<\/p>\n

"Since 2018, Steven van de Velde has been participating in international beach volleyball tournaments again following an intensive, professionally supervised trajectory," the NOC said in a statement.<\/p>\n

A report in The Australian claims the British Olympic Committee is uncomfortable with the Van de Velde selection.\ufeff<\/p>\n

The International Olympic Committee allows each nation to select its own athletes and does not veto any picks.<\/p>\n

\ufeffIn an interview in 2018, Van de Velde said, "I made that choice in my life when I wasn't ready, I was a teenager still figuring things out.<\/p>\n

"I was sort of lost and now I have so much more life experience, aside from just being incarcerated.<\/p>\n

"Any form of help would have been very very helpful, maybe that's what I would have told myself, seek help."\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A\ufeff convicted child rapist has been selected to represent the Netherlands at the Olympic Games. Steven van de Velde will head to Paris to represent […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":406794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=406792"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406795,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406792\/revisions\/406795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/406794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=406792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=406792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=406792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}