Despite soiling herself, women’s world record holder Joanna Wietrzyk was allowed to continue in the competition, which she eventually won. Organisers of the global indoor fitness competition Hyrox have issued an apology and changed rules after a participant soiled herself during an event in Beijing on Saturday (Sep 12).
Hyrox co-founder Moritz Furste apologised for the handling of the incident and said the organisation should have intervened during the race.
“In the end it is my job to foresee these potential incidents and I did not. “Of course, we started improving event processes, plus making rulebook changes immediately. As of this moment, there are new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again.”
“Hyrox made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race,” Furste said in a statement. The former field hockey Olympic champion said the organisation was implementing rule changes immediately to ensure such a situation does not happen again.
Footage and images of Wietrzyk continuing to race with faeces visible on her legs were widely circulated on social media, triggering a fierce debate over why she was allowed to continue. Hamburg-based Hyrox’s standardised indoor fitness competition combined eight one-kilometre runs with eight workout stations on the same course, with athletes using shared equipment. The Australian went on to win the women’s pro race in a time of one hour, one minute and 23 seconds. The competition has grown rapidly from a niche fitness challenge into a global phenomenon, especially on social media, since it was founded in 2007.
Following her victory, the 22-year-old posted a selfie from a medical stretcher/hospital bed captioned, “Go hard or go home… a win is a win,” which she quickly deleted after facing massive public backlash.
