The Australian athlete who caused a storm by winning a Hyrox event in China despite soiling herself during the race has apologised to the \u201cpeople of China\u201d and rival athletes in a statement online.<\/p>\n
Posting on Instagram, Joanna Wietrzyk offered a \u201csincere apology\u201d to the \u201cpeople of China, my fellow competitors, the spectators and the Hyrox organisers for what happened during the race in Beijing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Footage of Wietrzyk, a world record-holder, went viral after it showed her competing in \u2013 and winning \u2013 Saturday\u2019s event with demanding exercises and using communal equipment, despite having faecal matter running down her legs.<\/p>\n
But she admitted in her post on Thursday night that she should have \u201cstepped off the track\u201d and that there was \u201cmore to life than racing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt completely fit and healthy at the start of the race, with no reason to expect any illness,\u201d Wietrzyk wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking back, I regret the decision to not have stepped off the track. I recognise that I should have made a different choice. I take responsibility for my decision to continue and am deeply sorry for the discomfort and disruption it caused.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said she would forfeit the points from winning the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know my actions had an impact beyond myself, and I am genuinely sorry to everyone who was affected. I am learning from this experience and will carry those lessons with me, including remembering that there is more to life than racing and knowing when it is right to step away. On reflection, I have decided to retroactively withdraw from the race and forfeit the points I earned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hyrox, an increasingly popular fitness competition launched in Germany in 2017, is now held in locations across the world. It made its debut in mainland China in late 2024.<\/p>\n
In each race, participants alternate between running a kilometre and doing fitness exercises at shared high-intensity stations \u2013 including a rowing machine, sled pushes, burpee jumps, medicine ball throws and lunges while carrying a sandbag.<\/p>\n
Hyrox earlier this week apologised and pledged immediate rule changes after Wietrzyk was allowed to finish and win the Beijing event.<\/p>\n
Hyrox co-founder Moritz F\u00fcrste apologised in a statement on Instagram to everyone affected \u201cdirectly or indirectly\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHyrox made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race. In the end, it is my job to foresee these potential incidents \u2013 and I did not,\u201d F\u00fcrste said.<\/p>\n
He added that Hyrox had made \u201crulebook changes immediately\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of this moment, there are new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again.\u201d Before the weekend\u2019s incident, event rules penalised athletes for minor infractions such as littering on the course, or spitting or clearing their nose on the floor. But they contained no immediate protocol for faecal matter.<\/p>\n
Ending her Thursday statement, Wietrzyk said: \u201cThank you to those standing by me, both as an athlete and as a person, during this time, and to everyone who has reached out with kindness and support. It means more to me than I can properly express right now. I will be taking some time to recover, reflect and look after myself and my family away from the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n The Guardian\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian athlete who caused a storm by winning a Hyrox event in China despite soiling herself during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[499,103,61,1042,60,1094,386],"class_list":["post-629070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-international","tag-ireland","tag-report","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}