While most men, gay or straight, would brag about having a powerful penis, a Japanese pole vaulter is denying that his pole helped knock him out of the Olympic men's pole vault competition.
Hiroki Ogita became an Internet hit this week when video appeared to show his penis hitting the crossbar on a failed jump:
It was amusing but Ogita was not initially laughing.
"I never expected the foreign media to take me down like this," the 28-year-old athlete tweeted, according to the 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."
The reality is that the bar was going to fall regardless of Ogita's penis hitting it or not, since he had already knocked it first with his thigh. "He had already pressed on the crossbar so much," pole vaulting coach David Yeo told the BBC. "The crossbar was bound to dislodge. I think it was just the crumpling of the fabric which happened at the wrong position."
Ogita proved to be a good sport, later tweeting: "Watching again, this is pretty funny, if I say so myself. LOL."
Ogita finished 21st and did not reach the finals. He jumped 17 feet, 8 inches, but was knocked out, penis and all, at his attempt to clear 18-3. The pole vault was won in stunning fashion by Thiago Braz da Silva of Brazil, who set an Olympic record.
