An athlete who crashed out of the men's pole vault qualifiers after knocking the bar off with his manhood has finally spoken out.
Anthony Ammirati, who was representing France in the competition, suffered a rather unfortunate fail during his turn competing, as his crotch ended up swatting the bar.
The 21-year-old was hoping to make the final, having successfully cleared the 5.40 meters and 5.60-meter bars, but had a rather unfortunate finish to his attempt at the 5.70 meters bar.
His third attempt came the closest to being successful, however, his penis clipped the bar as he flipped over it, bringing it crashing down with him.
And of course, with so many cameras on him, the whole incident as caught in agonizing slow motion.
Watch the moment below:The 21-year-old was immediately catapulted to viral fame for the moment, which - let's be honest - doesn't happen at ever pole vault competition.
Ammirati has finally spoken out about the incident, sharing his frustration at his dreams of making the podium this year coming to an end.
While he didn't reference the incident outright, he told the French Athletics Federation: "I’m a bit gutted, 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."
Seemingly addressing the viral moment, he added: "I’m just glad I can make people smile and laugh. And who knows, maybe this will be the start of something amazing!"
People were indeed loving the unfortunate moment, joking: "Stiff competition.. got everyone nervous these games", and: "he was a few inches short.... or a few inches long."
Others added: "Loses vault. Wins internet," and: "i think its a bigger flex than winning a medal lmao".
One commented: "when you lose but you still win", while someone else added: "I'm not sure if we should feel bad for him or proud for him! Lol."
While he may not have won a medal this time, the viral moment has done nothing but grow his social media following, which saw his followers grow from around 5,000 on Saturday morning, to 50,000 the following day, and at the time of writing, 121,000 on Instagram.
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