China orders athlete to delete photos in ugly Winter Olympics furore

A Finnish skier claims she was ordered by Chinese officials to delete photos she shared on social media showing water flooding the athlete's village and flowing out of light fixtures at the Winter Olympics.

Katri Lylynpera posted a number of photos and videos last week showing water pouring down from the ceiling at her lodging and creating puddles on the floor.

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Exposed electrical equipment can also be seen in a number of the photos.

Lylynpera captioned the video "help", while also sharing footage of officials arriving to clean up the mess.

However the most staggering photo that Lylynpera shared was a screenshot of a message she allegedly received telling her to remove her posts from social media.

A fan site on Reddit interpreted the messages, reporting that Lylynpera joked about the “ridiculous” farce and said Chinese officials couldn't treat her the "same way" as their citizens.

"Finland's Olympic athlete dormitory in Beijing experienced a serious water leakage today," the Reddit site said.

"Some Finnish athletes posted this incident on Twitter and Instagram ... and they were told to delete them by the Chinese authorities."

The 28-year-old competed in the women's cross country free sprint last week but didn't make it past the qualifying stage.

China creating international headlines for wrong reasons

The incident is just one of a number of embarrassing situations China has found itself in during the Beijing Games.

In the lead-up to the Olympics, many braced for potential protests against the host country, which has been accused of widespread abuses against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs.

China has also come under fire for its polices toward Tibet, its crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong and the near-total disappearance from public view of tennis player Peng Shuai after she accused a former Communist Party official of sexual assault.

Concerns over human rights abuses led some countries to stage a diplomatic boycott of the Games, while Chinese organisers warned foreign athletes that any statement that goes against Chinese law could be punished.

Eyebrows have also been raised about the complete lack of real snow at the Games, with the Beijing Olympics the first in history to use 100 percent artificial snow.

China has reportedly been forced to bring in close to 400 snow guns at a cost of roughly $83 million due to the cold but dry climate in February.

China estimates it will need close to 50 million gallons of water to produce artificial snow throughout the Games.

The 'dystopian' backdrop at the Big Air events also created headlines around the world, with the events staged at an old steel mill in Beijing.

Many pointed out that the surrounds looked like the nuclear power plant in The Simpsons.

with AAP

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