Texas SWAT offer advice to Olympic bobsledder who got trapped in Sochi bathroom

Olympic bobsledder Johnny Quinn vowed on Friday to shower with the door open and to avoid elevators after he became a Twitter sensation following back-to-back Sochi building disasters.

The 30-year-old gained instant fame when he tweeted pictures of himself smashing his way through the door of his bathroom after he became locked in.

Two days later, he found himself trapped in an elevator.

He is now so well known that a Texas police department has even offered him a spot on their SWAT team so he can learn the professional techniques involved in breaking through a jammed door.

"I knew when I posted that photo (of the bathroom door which was left with a huge gaping hole) I'd probably get a couple of retweets, a dozen of funny comments, maximum," Quinn told AFP Friday.

"But nothing to the extent of what happened over the next days."

Quinn's photo was retweeted 23,000 times while he gained 11,000 new followers in a single day.

"It's a situation that could happen to anybody anywhere and it just happened to me at the Olympics," he said. "I was more frustrated than anything else."

"In the meantime my teammates are giving me a hard time...you can be sure that on the race day I'll make sure that I'll take a shower with the door wide open and will probably take the stairs."

Quinn added that he was grateful to Games staff who came to his aid.

"Shortly after, some staff men came in and fixed the door very professionally," he said.

"Apart of these slight incidents, it's an absolute joy to be here at Winter Olympics at Sochi."

Quinn said he was ready to accept an invitation from the police chief of Denton, Texas, who wants to teach him the correct way to break down doors.

"Actually it's a great honour to train with those guys as they're real heroes, those who protect us every single day. I think that will be a great experience when I get home," added the Texan-born four-man bob pusher.

Quinn came into bobsleigh after a spell in American football, signing for the Buffalo Bills and the Green Bay Packers in the NFL before a knee injury ended his career.

"My professional football career didn't go the way I wanted it to as I blew up my knee while playing in Canadian football league," Quinn said. "And I saw that the door was closed for me in football."

"When professional football was over for me at the age of 26, I still wanted to compete. Bobsleigh just made sense. And now for me to be named in the US Olympic team at the age of 30 is really great. I'm truly excited."