SOCHI SCENE: Brand police

Associated Press

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — It's hard to find fruit on the menu in Sochi's Olympic Park — and Apples are definitely not welcome.

Olympic workers are swooping on reporters sitting in competition venues with Apple laptops, and hastily taping over the iconic logo with duct tape.

In fact, any laptop that isn't made by official sponsor Samsung is likely to face an Olympic cover-up. Apple iPads escape the tape treatment only if they are lying flat on the media tables in the venues.

Outside, the three-cornered star on the front grille of a Mercedes van is also masked by packing tape. Volkswagen is the official supplier of vehicles to Sochi 2014.

Olympic organizers go to great lengths to prevent ambush marketing, and have covered non-sponsor emblems at previous games. In London, even toilet logos were taped over by Olympic workers, despite the fact there was no competing cistern sponsor.

See the cover-up in progress here: http://twitter.com/anthonyted/status/432922212123680769

— By Mark Davies — http://twitter.com/MarkDaviesAP

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Associated Press reporters will be filing dispatches about happenings in and around Sochi during the 2014 Winter Games. Follow AP journalists covering the Olympics on Twitter: http://apne.ws/1c3WMiu