American athlete Kate Hansen has found an unwelcome guest outside her room in Sochi. "Wolf in my hall?!? #SochiProblems #SochiFail", Hansen tweeted along with a video of the animal outside the dorm where Olympic athletes stay.

"I'm pretty sure this is a wolf wandering my hall in Sochi," she adds on the YouTube posting. The video was published on Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear if the animal really was a wolf or a large dog.

There were thousands of stray dogs living amid the mud and rubble of Olympic construction sites, and authorities ordered a cull before the start of the Games which drew international condemnation.

Sochi authorities have commissioned a company to catch and kill the animals so they do not create a nuisance.

Alexei Sorokin, director general of pest control firm Basya Services, said his company was involved in the "catching and disposing" of dogs and had a contract to cull more of them during the Games.

He would not specify how the dogs would be killed or where the carcasses would be taken.