The bulge of a pole vaulter seemingly cost the athlete the gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
According to Variety, the incident happened to Team France’s pole vaulter, Anthony Ammirati. While aiming for his target height, which was 5.7m (18.7ft), the French athlete’s package was deemed responsible for the pole being knocked down. The move disqualified him from the final and narrowly missed out on achieving the gold medal.
Of course, it didn’t take long for social media to take notice of the pole vaulter’s Olympic Games’ fail. “21-year-old French pole-vaulter Anthony Ammirati may have lost out on Olympic Gold, but I see big things in his future,” one X user wrote, with the clip featuring the bulged jump.
Another X user pointed out, “Anthony Ammirati failed the bar and the commentators are clearly having a hard time acknowledging what happened.”
Due to the incident, Ammirati ended up placing 15th.
French Pole Vaulter Breaks Silence Following Olympic Game Bulge Moment
Meanwhile, Ammirati was quick to speak out about the loss, calling it a “big disappointment.”
“I’m a bit gutted,” he told French Athletics Federation. “Because I didn’t miss anything on the third attempt at 5.70 m. What I did miss was a bit of jumping in training to fine-tune the settings. Just a technical session. I was 100 percent physically, but I was missing a bit of pole vault. The conditions were good. It’s the first time I’ve started a competition without any stress. As I was a total outsider, I only had one goal: to interact with the audience. I was almost there.”
French sports academy Envol also praised the pole vaulter for his performance at the Olympic Games. “We are proud of you @anthony_ammirati,” the academy’s Instagram post read in French. “Despite the last two physically disrupted weeks, you managed to be there, even if we are frustrated like you for this bar at 5m70. We wish you to live an unforgettable Olympic experience.”
Although a unique incident, this isn’t the first time that an athlete’s bulge cost them Olympic Games dreams. In 2016, Team Japan’s Hiroki Ogita also went viral for bulge issues, when his leg, then crotch, then arms took down the crossbar during qualifications.
“I never expected the foreign media to take me down like this,” he wrote in a post on X (then Twitter) after the event, according to BBC. “It’s one thing if it was true, but I have to say I’m pretty devastated that they’d go so far to make something up to mock and ridicule me so much.”
Ogita was able to joke about his situation by adding, “Watching again, this is pretty funny, if I say so myself. LOL.”