The people in Russia are extremely afraid of the government and many avoid protesting it because they are scared the oppressive govt will imprison them for any protest against their laws. It would have been great to see a mass protest, or even individual acts of protest at Sochi, it was always unlikely.
The IOC has warned competitors away from making protests in solidarity with the beleaguered Russian LGBT minority, and the anti-gay law in Russia strictly, and clearly, prohibits demonstrations related to LGBT.
A gold-winning Olympian might be arrested as they stepped off the podium, interrogated by the police, fined, and deported out of Russia. It's already happened to foreigners judged to have breached the anti-gay law. On top of that, once they got home, the IOC would inflict its own punishment.
Even though sportspeople are by nature self-obsessed navel-gazers, we can assume a portion of them are aware of the situation for LGBT in Russia. If they mirror the rest of the population, somewhere around 7% of the Sochi Olympians are themselves LGBT.
But boycott and protest are political acts, these are sportspeople. We have to look to politicians to lead the way, and though the youth does help we can get main support from the politicians and the international organizations.
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