I think it really depends what else that person has been exposed to practising outside of the Olympic sparring format. The techniques outside of Olympic style sparring cover dealing with punches, kicks shoots etc in a pretty brutal and straightforward way; some clubs choose to solely focus on sport, and therefore those non-sport elements are perhaps weaker in practitioners at those clubs. I wouldn't go as far as to say that Olympic Taekwondo has damaged Taekwondo in general, because the non-sport syllabus still exists and is fully practised at many clubs.
From an outsider's perspective, if all one sees is sport, one may reach the conclusion that sport is all there is.
This says a lot: in the last few years, I've been joining various group sessions, seminars and training outside of Taekwondo, for example Krav Maga, Boxing, BJJ, Karate and so on. In any of that, I have still yet to see a technique or principle that was completely new to me, one that I had not already been exposed to via Taekwondo. Sure, in the BJJ group there's more depth in the groundwork, but the basic principles were not new to me, I already had them from Taekwondo, and the same with the other groups. The style of practice differs, but the techniques and principles are similar.
I'm not comparing Taekwondo to those other ways, or saying that it is better. Just that there's more to TKD than sport, and time spent in the art brings exposure to plenty of that if one is willing to seek it out. It's not an art for people who want to be spoon fed.
Their fitness and capacity for training is amazing.
