Van de Velde was booed and jeered while competing at the Games. Dutch Olympic officials went to lengths to protect him from the press during the event.
He has now opened up to Dutch publication NOS about his experience, admitting that while he anticipated backlash, the intensity of it took him by surprise. "I definitely had a moment of breaking down, both before the tournament and during it. But I thought ‘I’m not going to give others the power to bully me away or get me away’.
Thank you for elaborating on the backstory, seems I did not know half of the past of the case.
Tried a short google but there was no old in depth information about the case back then.
All in all it is at least a strange thing that the people around him thought it was a good idea for him to attend the olympics and enabled him to do it.