A pole vaulter's walking away empty-handed because his pole malfunctioned ... no, not the one he uses to vault -- the one barely contained by his leotard!
Anthony Ammirati -- a prominent French pole vaulter -- had his first heat Saturday morning ... and, while he expected to flip over the bar and land in the final, he ended up catching his smaller vaulting pole on the crossbar.
Check out the clip ... AA goes up just fine, but when he's coming back down he ends up knocking the bar down with his impressive bulge -- and down comes the bar.