Steven van de Velde, the Dutch beach volleyball player who served time in prison for having sex with a 12-year-old girl, received a mixture of boos and applause when he was introduced before losing his opening match at the Paris Olympics.
Van de Velde did not speak to reporters after the three-set loss to Italy, a break with a longstanding International Olympic Committee (IOC) policy.
“He’s not here because he just wanted to rest his mind about it and just focus on the game,” said teammate Matthew Immers, who said he did not notice the crowd reaction.
Dutch team spokesman John van Vliet said the decision to shelter Van de Velde was made by the national Olympic committee and shared with the IOC.
Asked if they were protecting a convicted child rapist, he said: “We are protecting a convicted child rapist to do his sport as best as possible and for a tournament which he qualified for."
“The general matter of sex conviction and sex-related crime is definitely a more important issue than sport,” van Vliet said in the mixed zone after the match.
“In his case, we’ve got a person who has been convicted, who did his sentence, who did everything afterwards which he can do to be able to compete again.”
Van de Velde was convicted in 2016 of having sex with a 12-year-old girl in England. He served a combined 13 months in prison in Britain and the Netherlands.
The 29-year-old Olympic rookie 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 prematch introduction.
Immers - and all the other players appearing on the sand so far in the Summer Games - received nothing but cheers.
There were no other signs of protest at the match, which came on the first sunny day at the Olympics’ iconic venue at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
The controversy has caught the Dutch pair off-guard after a two-year qualifying period in which Van de Velde's record was not an issue.
However, it resurfaced after the team played its way into the No. 11 spot in the world rankings as the No. 2 team from the Netherlands, earning an Olympic berth.
Immers said it was disappointing that the attention to the case has dominated the discussion of his Olympic debut.
“He has been playing with him many, many tournaments for many, many years — the last three years. It has never been an issue,” Van Vliet said.
“I’m not judging if it should have been or not, but it has never been an issue. And now, all of a sudden, for them, it’s a surprise.”
The International Volleyball Federation has said it was powerless to stop the Dutch from sending Van de Velde to Paris after he qualified in the usual way.
Van de Velde, who is not staying at the athletes village, had previously said the incident was “the biggest mistake of my life”.
