Spain's Basketball Federation has published a good luck advert for their men's team, the world champions, in which they stand pulling at the sides of their eyes in a slit-eyed gesture.

There is no obvious intention to upset their Olympic hosts in Beijing, but the irresponsible picture is likely to cause controversy and could be interpreted so as to lead to accusations of racism.

Spanish sport has been mired in rows over racism in the last few years. In November 2004 black English footballers were subjected to relentless racial barracking from home supporters in a match in Spain. Before the World Cup there were calls for Luis Aragones, then Spain's football coach, to be sacked after he called Thierry Henry a "black ******". And last year Lewis Hamilton suffered racist abuse during testing for the Spanish grand prix near Barcelona.

A picture recently discovered on the website of the Spanish Tennis Federation shows the nation's Federation Cup team making an eye-slant gesture, according to a report in London's Telegraph. The shot was apparently snapped in February, prior to Spain's Federation Cup match with China.

It's the second such picture of a Spanish sports team to emerge in the past week. Spain's basketball team made a similar gesture in an advertisement for a courier company that was published prior to the Olympics in the newspaper La Marca.

Had no clue Spain was filled with cism. Sad. On another note I can find this game on my Directv guide.

Is NBC showing the China vs Spain game 2uesday morning???

who's your cable operator? i got time warner and there's actually an "olmypic basketball" channel, which willshow every game not on nbc