Olympic pole vaulter sees the funny side of reports that his penis ruined his chances at Rio 2016 (VIDEO)
A Japanese Olympic pole vaulter has responded with confusion and humour at reports that his penis blocked him from progressing at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
A video of Hiroki Ogita went viral as it appeared that his penis, inside his shorts, had made contact with the cross-bar.
But while reports suggested that it was his genitalia which stopped him from progressing, his leg and then his arm were to blame.
“I never expected the foreign media to take me down like this,” tweeted the 28-year-old athlete.
“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,” he added.
But after some admitted that his loose shirt could have caught on the bar, Ogita saw the funny side.
Ogita even changed his Twitter handle, in order to avoid ridicule online for the move, which left him out of the running for a medal, losing his verified blue tick in the process.
“To be honest, it’s pretty rough, but I guess I’m in the spotlight so this might be some kind of opportunity. I’ll do my best and get the results so that I get the last laugh,” he tweeted.
“It doesn’t matter if you do it for a joke or whatever, I ask you to go and watch an actual game at a stadium for once. I hope you appreciate, even a bit, what a great sport pole vaulting is.”
The Olympian later saw the funny side, and tweeted: “Watching again, this is pretty funny, if I say so myself. LOL.”
Watch the video below:
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An Italian open water swimming star earlier this week become the first Italian Olympic athlete at the Rio 2016 games to publicly come out as gay with an inspirational message about acceptance.
A record number of out LGBT Olympians took to Rio this year to participate in the games, but none were from Team Italy.
Tom Bosworth – a race walker for Team GB – tweeted a photo of himself proposing to his boyfriend on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro earlier this week.
Bosworth and his boyfriend were the second gay couple to engaged at this year’s games, after a rugby sevens player was proposed to by her girlfriend.
At the weekend, a Brazilian judo champion came out publicly as gay in an interview during the Rio Olympics.
