BERLIN — The Olympics would not be the Olympics if the personal lives of the athletes did not play a major role in the event. But the love life of one young athlete has become the focus of a nation — not as an inspirational story but as a cautionary tale.

The athlete, Nadja Drygalla, a rower on the German Olympic team, volunteered to leave the Olympic Village last week after a discussion with officials about her boyfriend’s extreme right-wing political activities. But instead of heading off a potential controversy through her quiet departure, Ms. Drygalla has become the focus of a national debate, her romantic choices dissected in leading newspapers and on television broadcasts.

Ms. Drygalla’s boyfriend, Michael Fischer, himself a former competitive rower, was a candidate last year in a regional election for the far-right National Democratic Party and is part of an extremist group known as the Rostock National Socialists.

“I have no connection to his circle of friends and this scene, and I reject it completely,” Ms. Drygalla, 23, said in an interview with DPA, a German news agency. She said that his politics were a burden on their relationship and that she had considered breaking up with him over it. She quit her career as a police officer last year after her superiors learned about the relationship.