Over 100,000 people have signed an online petition to disqualify a convicted child rapist from competing in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Last month, the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOC) approved the selection of 29-year-old Steven van de Velde on the Netherlands’ beach volleyball team ahead of the Games. In 2016, van de Velde was convicted of three counts of rape against a 12-year-old girl in 2014, when he was 19 years old.
The NOC’s decision sparked outrage from the public, advocates in the domestic and sexual violence sector, and legal experts, but the decision was unchanged. Van de Velde played his Olympic debut match on Sunday and is set to play in the second pool match on August 1.
Last Friday, Lauren Muir started a change.org petition, calling on people to join her in pushing for the rapist to be disqualified from participating in the Games.
“This petition is personal for many of us, born out of a deep sense of justice that seems to have been overlooked in the case of Steven van de Velde, a convicted child rapist now qualified to participate in the Olympics,” Muir wrote in the petition’s description.
“The tarnished record of van de Velde should not be swept under the rug, nor should it stand as a symbol of achievement at an event as prestigious as the Olympics.
“This is about more than just one person; it’s about the worldwide image of the Olympics and the kind of society we want to live in.”
Muir called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to take action and exclude van de Velde from the rest of the tournament. The IOC has previously stated that the selection of athletes is the responsibility of each country’s committee.
Within 24 hours of the petition going live, nearly 90,000 people signed. Now, at the time of publishing, the petition has received 114,361 signatures.
Signatories of the petition stated their reasons (some, as Muir indicated, were reasons stemming from lived experience of sexual violence) for signing the petition.
“If this guy raped your family member, you wouldn’t let him join,” one man said.
“I care that this guy doesn’t make it to the Olympics, to compete in the most prestigious platform in the entire world, because we have to show that there are consequences for your actions. And when you seek out to hurt children, you don’t get to resume life as normal, because they never will. Stop this guy,” one woman said.
“Sign this because who are we if we don’t help this cause? Who are we?” one person said.
Van de Velde was released from prison in 2017, after serving only a quarter of his sentence. He resumed his volleyball career the following year and has since represented his country in multiple international tournaments.
The crowd at his Olympic debut beach volleyball game over the weekend booed van de Velde took to the court.
Speaking to reporters, van de Velde’s teammate Matthew Immers said “what’s in the past is in the past”.
“He had his punishment and now he is really kind,” Immers said. “For me it is an example that (he) grew and learnt a lot from it.”