Russia says there are no cameras in Sochi shower heads

Olympic rings for the 2014 Winter Olympics are installed in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, southern Russia, late Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012. The Sohi Olympics have been mired in controversy leading up to the opening ceremony. (AP Photo/Ignat Kozlov))

SOCHI, Russia — Concerns about Olympic hotel rooms in Sochi are approaching the absurd.

Russia’s Dmitry Kozak, the government’s point man for Olympic preparation, apparently told the Wall Street Journal that authorities have surveillance video from hotels showing that people leave the shower on.

Or maybe he said something else.

His spokesman, Ilya Dzhus, said Thursday that “no such thing was ever said.” He called the report a fantasy, a joke, or a mistranslation. Hotels have video surveillance of entrances for security purposes, he said, and some rooms had video surveillance during construction.

But never the bathrooms, Dzhus insisted. “You can check yourself.”

The reaction was a sign of how defensive Russian officials have become in the face of sustained criticism by journalists of glitches in hotels, all of which were built from scratch for the games that open Friday. Many were not quite finished when guests started arriving, and some rooms still have problems.