Spanish basketball team members apologize for 'slit-eyes' photo spread

Members of the Spanish national basketball team have apologized for appearing in a magazine advertisement where  the team members posed by pulling the skin on the side of their eyes to make them look Chinese.

The Spanish Olympic team posed in the magazine ad for the Spanish courier company, Seur, that sponsors the Spanish Basketball Federation. The full page ad was published in the popular sports daily, Marca.

A member of Spain's team, Toronto Raptors guard Jose Calderon, initially defended the ad, calling it an "affectionate gesture" and the Spanish coach, Aito García Reneses, initially declined to apologize for the picture, which he said was intended to be a joke.

"What happened was that during a photo session where the Spanish national team was unveiled, one of our sponsors asked as to pose with a 'wink' to our participation in Beijing and we made an oriental expression with our eyes," Calderon wrote on his Internet site.

"It seemed to us to be something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as an affectionate gesture. However some European media did not see it as such," he added.

Calderon also expressed the team's "great respect for the Orient and its people" and said that "some of my best friends in Toronto are of Chinese origin."

But Spanish star Pau Gasol, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, went further in his apology. "If anyone feels offended by it, we totally apologize for it," he said. "We never meant anything offensive by it."

Emmanuelle Moreau, a spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee, accepted the team's explanation. "We understand that the Spanish team intended no offense and has apologized," he said in an e-mail message to a media outlet. "The matter rests there as far as the I.O.C. is concerned."

The controversy comes as the Spanish Olympic committee is bidding to host the Olympic Games in Madrid in 2016. Madrid is one of the four finalists, competing against Chicago, Tokyo and Rio De Janiero. The International Olympic Committee will announce the winner in October. 

Spanish sports has already been under scrutiny after fans taunted England's black soccer players with "monkey chants" at a November 2004 game in Madrid.