Steven van de Velde, the Dutch beach volleyball player who served time in prison for rape, received a mixture of boos and applause when he was introduced before his opening match on Sunday at the Paris Games.

Van de Velde was greeted with only a handful of boos when he first took the sand for warmups, but the hooting was louder for the more formal pre-match introduction. His teammate Matthew Immers – and all the other players appearing at the Eiffel Tower Stadium so far in the Summer Games – received nothing but cheers.

  • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    Oh, most people in the Netherlands who know about this think it’s completely absurd and it shouldn’t have happened.

    But for some reason the Olympic Committee disagrees.