Spain's 'Slant-Eye' Team Photo Stirs Ire

Rob Livingstone, a Toronto-based journalist who founded a Web site devoted to tracking the International Olympic Committee's host city deliberations, said the poor judgment by a small group of Spanish athletes is unlikely to derail the city's Olympic hopes.

"Typically, these kind of things have little impact on the bids themselves," Livingstone said, citing a voting body of 100 members driven by a broad range of political and business agendas -- not individual incidents, however unflattering they may be.

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"Lots of people are asking, 'How is this going to impact Madrid 2016?' My reaction is it won't," Livingstone said. "Whether or not it should is another issue."

Livingstone pointed to Beijing as an example of the host city that has faced stiff criticism for its human rights record in Tibet from the moment it expressed interest in hosting the games right through today's Olympic action.

The IOC will announce the 2016 host city in October.

This is not Spain's first racial controversy involving sport. In 2004, FIFA, the world ruling body in soccer, fined the Spanish Football Federation nearly $90,000 after Spanish fans showered black English players with racist chants during a "friendly" match in Madrid.

The governing body for Formula One auto racing announced in April an anti-racism campaign after British driver Lewis Hamilton, who is black, was racially taunted by racing fans in Madrid. A group, wearing dark makeup on their faces, wore shirts that read "Hamilton's Family."

Four members of the Spanish national team play professional basketball for NBA teams, including Los Angeles Lakers superstar Pau Gasol and his brother Marc Gasol. Spain won the gold medal in the 2006 World Championships.

The controversy about the team's advertisement had not reached Beijing, according to ABC News reporters covering the Olympic Games, before today's matchup between the Spanish and Chinese teams.

Gasol led Spain to an overtime victory after his teammates erased a 14 point deficit in the third quarter. Chinese sensation Yao Ming fouled out after another game in which a foot fracture continued to hold back his play.