One week ago at the closing ceremony for Sochi’s Winter Olympics, IOC chief Thomas Bach delivered what many saw as a veiled plea to his host, Vladimir Putin seated opposite him in the Fisht stadium by the shores of the Black Sea.

“By living together under one roof in the Olympic Village, (the Games’ athletes) send a powerful message from Sochi to the world, a message of a society of peace, tolerance and respect,” Bach said in his closing ceremony speech.

“I appeal to everybody implicated in confrontation, oppression or violence: Act on this Olympic message of dialogue and peace.”

Bach is notorious in his office for changing his speeches at the last minute. The developments in Ukraine would have been weighing on his mind as he weighed his words. The so-called Olympic truce, already fragile, was disintegrating. A Games intended as a symbolic embrace of post-Communist Russia by the global community was starting to sour.