Believe it or not, there is a Beijing 2008 ad campaign even more offensive than NBC/Universal’s attempts to intersperse clips from “The Mummy : Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor” with Olympic promos, as the Guardian’s Sid Lowe explains.

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.

It’s kind amazing that not one of the 15 players nor anyone from the SBF thought this might be a bad idea. On the other hand, it does leave the door wide open for Pau Gasol to front a series of ads for Abercrombie & Fitch.