Spain Wants To Fit In

For those you who have not seen the photo pictured above you can bet China's basketball team is really kicking themselves about blowing a 15-point lead against Spain on Tuesday morning.

Spain's Olympic basketball teams have risked upsetting their Chinese hosts by posing for a pre-Games advert making slit-eyed gestures. The advert for a courier company, which is an official sponsor of the Spanish Basketball Federation, occupied a full page in the sports daily Marca, the country's best-selling newspaper.

The advert features two large photographs, one of the men's basketball team, above, and one of the women's team. Both squads pose in full Olympic kit on a basketball court decorated with a picture of a Chinese dragon. Every single player appears pulling back the skin on either side of their eyes. The advert carries the symbol of the sport's governing body.

No one involved in the advert appears to have considered it inappropriate nor contemplated the manner in which it could be interpreted in China and elsewhere. No offence was intended by the advert, but whether the Chinese see it that way is a different matter and it is likely to provoke more criticism at a delicate time for Spanish sport.

Damn, the Spanish are ruthless. They just blew any chance they had with any Chinese-born females while in Beijing ... unless the chick's initials are B.L., she's easy.


[Source: The Guardian]