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More ‘slant eye’ images of love from Spain, and now Argentina

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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Since this blog has begun there have been interesting debates in the comments about a variety of topics. NBC’s controversial decision not to show the games live on the West Coast (but still calling it ‘live’), the seemingly underage Chinese gymnasts, the punishment of a wrestler who was given a bronze medal that he refused to accept, the concept of Medals per Capita have all garnered their fair share of reader attention.

But the most commented posts that we have seen here have been those about the Spanish men’s basketball team and the ad they posed for while pushing the skin of their eyes back. Most considered this clearly offensive, but most of our Spanish commentors didn’t, nor did an editor of Hoy (a Spanish-language newspaper owned by Tribune, which also owns the L.A. Times). The Spaniards seem to believe that the gestures are one of camaraderie and playful fun with the Chinese, not at their expense.

Today we discovered two bits of what some might call fun and others might call offensive. The first is the photo above of the Spanish women’s basketball team, which recently surfaced. There had been reports that the women posed at the same time as the Spanish men’s hoops team for the odd ad that ran in a newspaper in Spain, but for some reason only the men’s team photo has floated around the web. This new photo now makes it the third Spanish team to pose in this controversial manner, after the discovery of the Spanish tennis team’s photo.

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The second discovery comes via the Telegraph, which posted a photo of several members of the women’s soccer team from Argentina joining in on the ‘fun.’ Not sure if this trend will continue, but if karma means anything, the women’s soccer team from Argentina didn’t win one game in Olympic play.

-- Tony Pierce

The Spanish women’s Olympic basketball team being offensive or friendly, depending on where you happened to grow up. Credit: AP Photo/Seur

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