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Olympic athletes, including some from Team USA, had a bad start to the London Games Monday after bus drivers taking them to the competitors’ village in east London got lost.

Kerron Clement, US 400m hurdler and Beijing silver medallist, claimed he spent four hours on a bus after the driver got lost after collecting them from Heathrow airport.

He posted on Twitter: “Um, so we've been lost on the road for 4hrs. Not a good first impression London. Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please.”

Meanwhile, members of Australian contingent of 30 officials and medical staff had to use their iPhones to direct their bus driver after he also became lost.

One of the officials, Damian Kelly, told the Daily Telegraph: "It would have been a great tourist trip if that is what you are here for.

Even government officials involved are calling it a fiasco, and their assessments have been backed up by whistle-blowers’ accounts that have sketched out the extent of the chaos that has thrown Olympic security plans into disarray only two weeks before the games begin.

Newspaper accounts have told of recruits hired for essential security tasks at more than 100 venues — including the main, 80,000-seat Olympic stadium — falling asleep during training sessions, or preparing for high school and college exams only desks away from instructors teaching them how to search bags and spot concealed bombs and weapons.

Instructors for G4S, the private security company that has a $440 million contract to provide 10,400 guards for the games, have complained of facing rows of recruits who speak little or no English.

One tabloid published a photograph, which it said had been taken at a training session, that showed a young woman slumped at her desk, apparently sleeping, with a youth alongside her apparently listening to music through earphones.

The account, in The Daily Mail, told of recruits repeatedly failing to spot fake bombs and grenades during X-ray training, and clearing people through security during their training without spotting hidden weapons, in one case a 9 mm pistol stuffed into a “test spectator’s” sock. The paper quoted one whistle-blower, whom it described as having a military background, as saying, “Some of the people on that course you would not hire to empty a dustbin. You are talking about really poorly educated, slovenly slobs.”

Accounts that have not been rebutted by G4S have said that many of the recruits are in their late teens, with no previous work experience.

Others have spent months or years unemployed, and on government welfare benefits, according to officials with knowledge of Olympic planning who asked not to be identified. Newspaper reports have said that among those who have completed their training and been deployed to Olympic sites, dropout rates have been as high as 50 percent, and many others have missed shifts or shown up hours late.

On Thursday, when the government acknowledged the extent of the bungling and announced that it would be adding 3,500 additional troops to the 13,500 already committed to security duties at the Games, it offered assurances that the security for the 17 days of competition would not be compromised. Theresa May, the home secretary, who is one of the most powerful figures in Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, laid the blame on G4S and said that the extent of the company’s mismanagement had only “crystallized” 24 hours before she reported it to the House of Commons.