In addition to Leon Marchand, who won his fourth swimming gold medal yesterday, another French athlete, 21-year-old pole vaulter Anthony Ammirati, has become an instant viral phenomenon after an incident involving his groin.
Ammirati missed his target height and knocked over the post with his bulge, meaning he failed to make his qualifying circuit for the final. The scene left commenters scrambling for words, but it quickly led to memes and jokes all over social media.
“When you’re about to win an Olympic medal but your huge cock gets in the way while the whole world watches in slow motion,” says one user on X (formerly Twitter) wrote.
Unfortunately, this was Ammirati’s first and only competition at these Olympics and he will not get a second chance to compete for a medal. But the viral scene provides some much-needed comic relief amid a series of controversies surrounding these Olympics, involving several people, including the event’s artistic director Thomas Jolly and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, a victim of online hate speech.