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Russian President Vladimir Putin was blushing with pride as the Sochi Winter Olympics passed the torch to the Winter Games’ next host, Pyeongchang in South Korea. The Games’ polar bear mascot shed a tear as he blew out a cauldron of flames, extinguishing the Olympic torch that burned outside the stadium.

Russia’s $51 billion investment, now dubbed the “Putin Games,” transformed a decaying resort town on the Black Sea into an international household name. But the spectacle didn’t win over critics of the country’s backsliding on democracy and human rights under Putin, and it’s intolerance of gays.

Although there were only a handful of arrests during the games, including the arrest and beating caught on video of punk band, Pussy Riot, the country’s intolerance of dissent was highlighted in media around the world.

Other brave Russian activists came out to protest in Moscow and St. Petersburg because they thought that the eyes of the world were fixed on them that their activist allies in Sochi would support them by word and deed, but the fear of retribution or arrest apparently kept them from speaking out.

Now many of the protestors who were detained will face large fines and possibly, further legal and extralegal persecution.

Lesbian tennis legend Billie Jean King, said that she supported athletes’ decisions to stay clear of public demonstrations that could get them booted from competition, but thinks that the Olympics is definitely a place for politics.

“It is an unbelievable opportunity to exchange ideas and hear each other,” she said, standing on a hotel balcony just outside Olympic Park. “Hopefully, out of all these athletes we will have some teachers.”

To believe the Olympics can remain entirely separate from politics, she says, amounts to “keeping your head in the sand.”

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Carrie Stone