Outraged by a new Russian law that outlaws “homosexual propaganda” and by President Vladimir Putin’s recent remarks that gays who go to Sochi for the Olympic Winter Games should “stay away from children,” some gays and lesbians are planning to boycott watching the Olympics on TV.

As international attention focuses on the Sochi Winter Olympics, the big question is whether security will hold, even with Russia's draconian response, which has included bringing in more than 30,000 additional troops and police, sealing off the city and closing nearby international border crossings to try to counter Islamist insurgents’ threats to attack the games themselves. Yet whatever happens in February, Sochi will have longer term implications for Russian politics, society and its economic fortunes.

The Russian head of the Sochi Olympics, Dmitry Chernyshenko, says he doesn't think athletes should be allowed to express their political views during their news conferences at the Games. His position appears to directly contradict International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, who said athletes were permitted to make political statements at press conferences.

The world is just a few days away from witnessing the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics. This year, the games will be held in the Russian summer resort of Sochi. Sochi, known as a longtime retreat for the Communist elite, will be hosting history’s most expensive Olympics, with a bill of $51 billion.

The 2014 Winter Olympic games begin in a little less than a month at the time of writing this article. They will be located in Sochi, Russia, which is a tiny Russian resort town on the Black Sea. Also this year, the 2014 World Cup kicks off this June. It will take place across Brazil in a multitude of cities across the country. Both of these events are significant because they are two of the largest (if not the largest) worldwide sport events.

Athletes will be allowed to make political statements in press conferences at the Winter Olympics but will be punished for doing so while competing or during Games ceremonies, Thomas Bach confirmed on Monday. The International Olympic Committee president vowed that no athlete would be denied “freedom of speech” whilst in Sochi, despite the Olympic Charter banning demonstrations or “political, religious or racial propaganda” in any Games areas.

There are at least a couple of documentary films on Pussy Riot, the art collective notorious for lip-synching a punk protest song in a Russian Orthodox cathedral. But Russian authorities had made it clear, as recently as a month ago, that they didn’t appreciate public attempts to screen such films.

He can still dunk like a butterfly, but in the personally tragic case of former basketball pro Dennis Rodman in North Korea, the embrace of Kim Jong Un and his policies sting like a bee. Rodman is only the most recent example of sports diplomacy gone awry. And with the Sochi Olympics a few weeks away, it is inevitable that a new cadre of unpredictable athlete diplomats will make it to center stage.