Joanna Wietrzyk, the Australian Hyrox world champion and women’s solo world record holder, won an event in Beijing on Saturday after becoming ill during the race and continuing to use shared equipment.
Video and photographs from the age 16-24 elite event showed faeces running down Wietrzyk’s legs as she raced. She completed the competition in 1 hour 1 minute 23 seconds, and officials allowed her to finish and take the win.
Hyrox co-founder Moritz Fürste apologised in a social-media statement on Sunday, accepting that the organisation had failed to intervene during the event. “HYROX made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race,” he said.
Fürste added: “In the end it is my job to foresee these potential incidents — and I did not.”
Hyrox is an indoor fitness competition that attracts around 1.5 million competitors annually. Its races require athletes to alternate between running a kilometre and completing exercises at workout stations, including sled pushes and pulls, burpees, rowing, and lunges while carrying sandbags.
The Beijing incident exposed a problem in an event format that brings elite athletes and mass-participation competitors into the same setting. Wietrzyk continued racing while visibly unwell and used equipment shared by other participants.
Hyrox said it had “clear biocontaminant and medical procedures in place”. The organisation said that “In this instance, an unforeseen situation arose in which protocols designed for elite competition and mass participation became blurred, creating ambiguity in how they were applied and understood”.
The company deep cleaned the National Speed Skating Oval after the race. It has not said what caused Wietrzyk’s medical emergency, whether she received medical attention during the competition, or why officials initially permitted her to continue.
Fürste said organisers had acted immediately after the event. “As of this moment, there are new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again,” he said. He also said “we started improving event processes, plus making rulebook changes immediately”.
Hyrox has not set out the specific policy changes or explained how they will be enforced. The organisation did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the changes or on why a Hyrox statement was later taken down.
After the event, Wietrzyk posted a selfie from what appeared to be a hospital bed, captioned: “Go hard or go home … a win is a win”. The Instagram post was later deleted.
The incident prompted heavy discussion on social media, including online abuse directed at people involved. Hyrox said anyone identified as engaging in online abuse would be permanently banned from all Hyrox events.
Wietrzyk’s victory remains the recorded result from the Beijing competition. Hyrox’s apology, and its acknowledgement that procedures were applied ambiguously, placed the focus on how an organisation with large participation events handles a medical incident in real time.
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