Sochi Visitors Report Hotel Horrors, Dangerous Conditions

By Matt Gutman February 5, 2014

The honey is definitely natural. The bee inside the honey packet proves it.

The small - but perhaps telling - example reflects the ick factor thousands of athletes and visitors to Sochi are experiencing just three days before the start of the Olympic games.

Journalists have been sharing photos online. One photo shows a sign that says, "do not flush toilet paper down toilet."

There are even reports that the water in parts of Sochi is too tainted to drink.

Then there are the accommodations …

Some visitors are resorting to black-market barters.

It's not just the hotel horrors. Olympic officials are also scrambling to make last-minute changes to a slopestyle course after some athletes are calling the course too dangerous.

Those criticisms intensified Tuesday, when two-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White fell and injured his left wrist. He later called the run "a little intimidating," saying, "The consensus so far from everyone is that there are changes that need to be made." White later withdrew from the event.

Finnish snowboarder Merika Enne also crashed on the course, hitting her head. She was carried off on a stretcher.

Norway's Torstein Horgmo, a medal favorite, broke his collarbone in a crash Monday, ending his shot at the winter games.

The whole slopestyle course runs 650 feet, with a final jump at over 70 feet high - that's six school buses.