Workman have ploughed through early today in the Australian building, running a number of tests as blocked toilets, leaking pipes, exposed wiring, darkened stairwells and dirty floors met Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) staff on their arrival last week.

And while Australian team boss Kitty Chiller is confident athletes will be able to enter the village within 24-48 hours, more than 50 Olympic competitors will be forced to stay elsewhere on arrival in Rio.

“We had a huge team of plumbers in here, they’ve done diagnostic testing on every pipe in every apartment in every bathroom on all our 14 floors,” Chiller told ABC News this morning.

“That diagnostic testing will continue into the evening and into the night also and into tomorrow.

A similar fate awaited a number of other nations who arrived last week, and Chiller is hopeful Australia can match their two-day turnaround.

“It’s just a matter of identifying the leaking pipes which has now been done largely throughout our building and then bringing in the workmen which is now happening to fix those pipes – it’s just tightening connections,” she said.

The AOC had earlier announced that the first batch of athletes, including boxers and canoe slalom competitors, would be moved into other hotels.

However she stressed it would not have any impact on their Olympic preparations.

“Due to a variety of problems in the village including gas, electricity and plumbing, I have decided that no Australian team member will move into our allocated building,” Chiller said in a statement.

“For over a week now AOC staff have been working long hours to get our section of the village ready for our athletes.

AOC staff had been due to move into the village on July 21 but have been forced to stay in nearby hotels.

But the situation hit crisis point yesterday when the AOC conducted a “stress test”, simultaneously turning on taps and toilets in apartments over several floors.

“The system failed,” Chiller said.

“Water came down walls, there was a strong smell of gas in some apartments and there was `shorting’ in the electrical wiring.”

Chiller and AOC chief executive Fiona de Jong have been attending nightly meetings on the issue and repeatedly expressed their concerns to the local organising committee and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Extra maintenance staff and more than 1000 cleaners have been deployed to fix the problems and clean up. The IOC has recommended plumbing stress tests and fire safety tests be carried out throughout the village, all of which National Olympic Committees (NOCs) have been invited to observe.

Meanwhile, concerns about security in Rio de Janeiro have been heightened after a New Zealand athlete living in the city said today he had been held at gunpoint by men in police uniforms just days before the start of the Olympics.

What did you guys get up to yesterday?
I got kidnapped. Go Olympics!#Rio2016

— J L (@jasonleejitsu) July 24, 2016

Kiwi jiu-jitsu exponent Jason Lee, 27, says he was forced to take out a large sum of money from two ATMs in the Olympic host city on Saturday (Sunday AEST).

“I was threatened with arrest if I did not get in their private car and accompany them to two ATMs to withdraw a large sum of money for a bribe,” Lee said in a Facebook post.

He described the kidnappers as not “random people with guns, but rather official police officers on duty in full uniform”.

Lee, who has been living in Rio for about a year, is not part of New Zealand’s Olympic team as jiu-jitsu is not an event at the Games, which start next week.

“I’m not sure what’s more depressing, the fact this stuff is happening to foreigners so close to the Olympic Games or the fact that Brazilians have to live in a society that enables this absolute bull**** on a daily basis,” he said.

Concerns about security in Brazil have been a big issue in the lead-up the Olympics, with Chiller among those voicing concern in recent months.

Australian Paralympic sailor Liesl Tesch was robbed of her bicycle at gunpoint while training in Rio last month.

Asked about reports of Lee’s robbery by uniformed men, Chiller told 3AW:

“Hearing that, that’s not good news at all.”

“I’ve only been in the village, I haven’t been out and about. The security presence in and around the village has been very strong and very safe.

“I’ve not felt unsafe at all.

“Hearing something like that is very disturbing.”

Lee told Fairfax the men had warned him not to lay a complaint with police and when he contacted the Tourist Police later in the night, they told him even they were scared of the Policia Militar.

“One of the guys I was reporting it to said ‘We understand you are hesitant, because we are the police, and that branch of the police is so scary even we are afraid of them’,” he said.

The men had pulled him over in what appeared to be a routine highway stop, before transferring him to a civilian vehicle when he didn’t have the 2000 Brazilian reais ($A822) they demanded for his release, Lee said.

They had incorrectly told him he needed a passport to drive.

“These guys have pulled me over, they have weapons. I’m not in any position to negotiate,” he said.

-AAP