Steven van de Velde is at the Olympic Games in Paris despite conviction for child abuse

No punishment for her attacker—not the four years he was sentenced to and certainly not the 13 months he served—can change that. What thoughts must she wake up to every day? Let’s hope they are calm, happy, and forward-looking. But who knows?

The focus of the Paris Olympics is on the rapist. He is Steven van de Velde, and he is here representing the Netherlands in beach volleyball — in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, in a stunning setting that combines the thumping bass of a modern sport with a skyscraper-like ode to the French Revolution — because the Dutch Olympic officials have made a choice.

He had done his time, they said. He had repented, they said. He had earned the spot, they said.

Asked about the optics of protecting a child rapist, John van Vliet, a spokesman for the Dutch team, said: “We are protecting a convicted child rapist to be able to play his sport as best as possible and for a tournament for which he has qualified.”

Read those words again, if you can.

“We protect a convicted child rapist so he can practice his sport as best he can.”

Sunday morning, under the first blue sky of these Games, van de Velde and his playing partner, Matthew Immers, entered the sandy field with the tower as a backdrop. The stands were nearly full. When the announcer announced him — “At a enormous 1.98 meters tall, making his Olympic debut, mister… Steven… van de Velde!” — a few boos rang out through a venue that, every four years, is usually among the most exuberant at the Games.

“I didn’t hear it,” Immers said. “I think the audience is also far away. So you hear a lot of cheering.”

In the first set, Van de Velde, now 29, and Immers were on the verge of winning when their Italian colleagues …

Come on. None of this matters. This guy shouldn’t be here.

Let’s take a look at the facts, and we’ll try to keep this short: In 2014, when he was 19, van de Velde met an English girl on Facebook. He flew to her town northwest of London, raped her, and then advised her to take a morning-after pill. When she tried, the clinic alerted the authorities.

The judge in the case told Van de Velde, when sentencing him to four years in prison, that this was “clearly the end of his career”.

He served a year of his sentence in England before being transferred to the Netherlands, where he served another month.

And then… take over, Dutch Olympic officials.

“Van de Velde has fully complied with all requirements and met all strict thresholds for risk assessment, checks and due diligence,” the Dutch Olympic Committee wrote in a statement before the competition. “Experts have stated that there is no risk of recidivism. Van de Velde has been consistently transparent about the case that he calls the biggest mistake of his life. He deeply regrets the consequences of his actions for those involved. He has been open about the personal transformation he has undergone as a result.”

Yes, it is possible to get second chances and reform. Van de Velde has a wife and a child. He is free and lives his life. Isn’t that enough?

“I think Steven is a very good example of how he is now,” Immers said in English after their opening match. “I really enjoy playing with him. What’s in the past is in the past. He had his …” and he searched for a word before Van Vliet, who was standing next to him, said: “punishment.”

“Tough,” Immers picked up, “and now he’s really very nice. For me that’s a great example that you’ve grown.”

Everyone is for growth. Should that include the right to dig for gold?

“The consequences are lifelong for the child he raped,” the Brave Movement, a global organization working to end sexual violence against children, wrote in an open letter about van de Velde’s case. “Perpetrators move on. Those they abuse are left behind in search of healing and justice. We need a world that revolves around survivors, not perpetrators.”

The International Olympic Committee said before the Games that the decision to allow Van de Velde to compete was up to the Dutch. Dutch officials clearly knew this would be a problem; they arranged for Van de Velde to remain outside the Olympic Village and did not require Van de Velde to walk through the “mixed zone,” the area at each venue where athletes can be approached by the media. He has not spoken publicly.

“We’re here to create an environment for all of our athletes to perform well,” Van Vliet said. “We knew this was going to be a special situation, so we did our own measurements to make sure they perform as well as they can in the environment that’s best for them.”

The Netherlands has made different choices about who it wants to represent and who it doesn’t. Joost Luiten, a 38-year-old veteran of the DP World Tour, qualified to compete in the men’s Olympic golf tournament. He wrote on social media that the Dutch federation wouldn’t send him because, he said, they didn’t think he had a good chance of finishing high. He went to court and won — but by then, International Golf Federation officials had already given his spot to another player.

We know for whom the Dutch committee will make special arrangements and for whom it will not.

Sunday van de Velde and Immers lost to two Italians. Wednesday they play against a team from Chile. The focus is coming back.

But when that match comes on the TV screen, forget about the competition. Think about that girl, not the then 19-year-old who exploited her. Think about the survivors of similar atrocities who might be triggered by just hearing his story and seeing him perform. For them, the Olympics are not a celebration. They are a reminder of their own suffering.