More 'slanty eye' photos emergeStephen Hutcheon | August 15, 2008
Another photo of Spanish Olympic athletes making a "slanty eye" gesture has emerged.
The gossip website Gawker has unearthed a photo featuring tennis players on the Spanish Tennis Federation website striking the same offensive pose.
(Update: The offending photo was removed overnight.)
Several members of Spanish female tennis players who are on the Olympic team can been seen in the photograph over a caption which reads: "We are ready for China."
That is believed to be a reference to the Spaniards' showdown with China in the semi-finals of the Federation Cup which took place in at the Beijing International Tennis Centre in April.
Three members of the Federation Cup squad - Nuria Llagostera Vives, Carla Suarez-Navarro and Maria-Jose Martinez Sanchez - are also in Beijing for the Olympics.
The discovery comes in the same week that Spanish basketballers competing at the Olympics were castigated for appearing in an ad for a courier company which showed them holding back the corners of their eyes to effect the look.
The ad, which was shot before the team left for Beijing, shows all 15 players in the men's squad smiling and making the gesture.
The Spanish women's basketball team and several members of Argentina's women's Olympic football team have also been photographed making the same gesture for the same courier company.
Spanish team officials and some players have tried to play down the incident, denying that the gesture has racist overtones and dismissing it as a harmless joke.
