Hyrox is changing its competition rules and issuing an apology after a now-viral video showed a female athlete soiling herself as she won a recent race in Beijing.
According to ESPN, the female athlete continued to compete and use shared equipment despite soiling herself in the middle of the indoor fitness competition. Hyrox requires athletes to complete a series of one-kilometer runs and eight workout stations on a closed course.
A viral video shows a woman competing with her legs covered in excrement; the woman was later identified as world-record holder Joanna Wietrzyk, an Australian athlete.
"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,” said Hyrox co-founder Moritz Furste. “In the end, it is my job to forsee these potential incidents – and I did not.”
Moving forward, race directors will have the power to remove an athlete if “blood, vomit, urine, or feces creates a welfare or contamination risk to them or other competitors. Any athlete removed in those circumstances will be recorded as not finishing the race.”
After Wietrzyk completed her race, Hyrox China disinfected the contaminated area and equipment, and work crews removed sections of carpet before racing could continue the next day.
"Protocols designed for elite competition and mass participation became blurred, creating ambiguity in how they were applied and understood," said Hyrox World in a statement, adding that medical and biological contamination procedures did previously exist.
Wietrzyk briefly posted on social media following the incident, but that post has since been taken down. Her coach, Chris Bayens, said, “It is very easy to construct the perfect response once the moment has passed. Those decisions can be reviewed and lessons can be taken from them.”
