Convicted child rapist Steven van de Velde made waves when it was announced he had qualified for the Paris Olympics, however, sports fans continue to show their distaste towards the player.

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Olympic beach volleyball fans booed van de Velde during his team's defeat against Norway, which wasn't enough to stop him from progressing to the quarter-finals.

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In 2016, Van de Velde was sentenced to four years in prison after he admitted to three counts of rape against a 12-year-old British girl.

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The convicted sex offender, then aged 19, met the young girl on Facebook in 2014 and knew of her age at the time of the offence.

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The Olympian had commented on one of her photos, with the victim claiming Van de Velde had made her "feel special".

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In  August  2014, Van de Velde flew from the Netherlands to the UK with the intention of meeting the child.

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The young girl had told her family she was staying at a friends house in order to sneak out to meet the 19-year-old at a hotel.

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They were unable to make a booking at the hotel and instead went to Furzton Lake in the area, where they drank alcohol and the girl performed a sex act on van de Velde.

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They then slept in cardboard boxes beneath a Premier Inn stairwell after again failing to secure a room.

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The morning after, the young girl allegedly took him to her empty family home, where van de Velde then took her virginity.

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Before returning to the Netherlands, Van de Velde advised the child to get a morning after pill as he had not used contraception.

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It was when the 12-year-old visited a family planning clinic that authoroties were alerted, in which van de Velde was extradited to th UK and arrested.

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After van de Velde served only one year of his four-year sentence, he was released in 2017, where he complained people weren't hearing "his side of the story".

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Van de Velde has been participating in the tournament with partner Matthew Immers who claims the pair are "making the best" of their progression to the knockout stage.

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Immers also defended his teammate against booing from the crowd, claiming he was "disappointed" by their reaction.

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He went on to say: "I don’t want to say much about it. What was in the past is in the past, I can’t change his past. I’m here to play with him. We want to have good results here. There are a lot of people who support us. We do it for them. He has a lot of pressure on his shoulders. I’m OK with that. Mentally we are strong, I am strong, we will get through this together."

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He continued: "It is what it is. I was disappointed with the fans. We talked on the field and asked ourselves: what do we need from each other? It was worse than in the first game. We need each other on the field, the hugs, the cheering."