French Pole Vaulter Bulge

About

French Pole Vaulter Bulge refers to a viral image and video of French pole vaulter and Olympic athlete Anthony Ammirati in which he missed his target height and knocked down the pole with his crotch bulge during the 2024 Summer Paris Olympics. The moment quickly went viral on social media in early August 2024, sparking a series of jokes and memes about Ammirati's genital being the reason he lost the chance of getting an Olympic medal.

Origin

On August 3rd, 2024, the French pole vaulter athlete Anthony Ammirati knocked down the pole with his bulge during the 2024 Paris Olympics, losing the chance to compete for a medal and exiting the Olympics. Ammirati's unfortunate moment was shared by X^[1] user @Glodyswotcher, who captioned the video with, "Anthony Ammirati failed the bar and the commentators are clearly having a hard time acknowledging what happened 😂 HELP I'M DYING." The post (seen below) amassed over 17 million views and 69,000 likes in a day.

Spread

The internet was flooded with jokes about Ammirati’s crotch over the following days. For example, on August 4th, 2024, TikTok^[2] user @ekb_yeahyouknowme posted a POV meme from the pole's perspective (seen below, left), which garnered more than 113,000 plays and 2,400 likes in a day.

On the same day, TikTok^[3] user @matt.math posted a video explaining how Ammirati’s bulge hit the pole. The video (seen below, right) received over 688,000 plays and 52,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References