The Netherlands has come under fire after the selection of Steven van de Velde, who was previously jailed for raping a 12-year-old girl, to represent the country in beach volleyball at the Paris Olympics.

Van de Velde, 29, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 after admitting to three counts of rape against a child who he'd met on Facebook, with the incident taking place in August 2014. He was released from prison just 12 months into his four-year sentence. 

After being released from prison, van de Velde resumed his volleyball career in 2018 and has since represented the Netherlands in multiple international tournaments "following an intensive, professionally supervised trajectory", according to the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOC).

Despite his previous conviction, the NOC said van de Velde met "all qualification criteria" to make the Olympic team.

"In 2016 and afterwards, several Dutch media also paid attention to the story. I understand that in the run-up to the biggest sporting event in the world, this can attract the attention of international media," van de Velde said in an NOC statement.

Van de Velde, who has qualified for the Olympics in his national pair with partner Matthew Immers, has previously referred to the 2014 incident as "the biggest mistake of my life".

“I made that choice in my life when I wasn’t ready, I was a teenager still figuring things out," he said in a 2018 interview with Dutch broadcaster NOS.

"I was sort of lost and now I have so much more life experience, aside from just being incarcerated.

“Any form of help would have been very very helpful, maybe that’s what I would have told myself, seek help.”