BBC Pundit Apologizes For Wishing Convicted Rapist 'Best Of Luck' At Olympics

A BBC pundit has apologized profusely after wishing the “best of luck” to a convicted rapist competing at the Paris Olympics.

“I want to sincerely apologise and emphasise how much I categorically condemn the crime of rape,” Paula Radcliffe, a former Olympic long-distance runner, said in a statement posted to social media Thursday.

“I am ashamed that my words so inaccurately represented myself. It was a mistake not to clearly denounce this at the beginning. ... Competing in the Olympic Games is a privilege that should be reserved for those who uphold the Olympic moral ideals. I absolutely should not have wished him luck and genuinely have no explanation for why I said that.”

Radcliffe also apologized in a separate social media post Wednesday, writing, “I was confused in my head and responding to the right to ban him from the Games and I don’t know why I wished him luck.”

This comes after Radcliffe was asked in an interview about Steven van de Velde, who is representing the Netherlands in beach volleyball this summer despite a 2016 conviction for raping a 12-year-old British girl when he was 19.

“Do you think there should be, you know, rules about your previous life before you’re allowed to compete in the Olympics?” Radcliffe was asked by a host on U.K. radio station LBC.

Radcliffe argued that van de Velde had “served his jail time, and it’s a long time to carry on paying for that mistake for the rest of your life.”

Van de Velde, now 29, was sentenced to four years in prison but served only about a year and was able to resume his volleyball career.

“I know that he’s married now and settled down,” Radcliffe told LBC. “I think it’s a tough thing to do to punish him twice. And if he’s managed to successfully turn his life around after being sent to prison, and to qualify and to be playing sport at the highest level, then I actually wish him the best of luck.”

The International Olympic Committee is facing calls for an investigation over van de Velde’s inclusion on the Dutch team.

The Paris Games kick off on Friday with an opening ceremony along the Seine River.

Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.