My guess is this douchebag was young, easily impressionable, and absolutely desperate to fit in socially with the rest of the people in the sport.

This is a bad recipe for socialists in sports, because sports people from capitalist countries are going to continue being the majority for a long time. They travel abroad, want to fit in and end up taking on the role of a pick-me. Everyone joining a new community is going to try to fit into that community and the advantage of capitalist hegemony is going to affect socialist sports people, especially because they're young.