{"id":601587,"date":"2026-09-16T00:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/601587\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T00:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:46:16","slug":"hyrox-co-founder-apologises-after-australian-continues-beijing-race-despite-soiling-herself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/601587\/","title":{"rendered":"Hyrox co-founder apologises after Australian continues Beijing race despite soiling herself"},"content":{"rendered":"

A founder of Hyrox has apologised after an athlete who suffered sudden faecal incontinence mid-competition<\/a> was allowed to continue, with the incident sparking rule changes after backlash online.<\/p>\n

Australian athlete Joanna Wietrzyk experienced the medical episode during the competition that she went on to win in Beijing at the weekend.<\/p>\n

The incident went viral on Chinese social media, with videos of her competing while visibly soiled shared widely.<\/p>\n

Hyrox sees competitors combine running with multiple workout station challenges, including sandbag lunges, burpees, sled pushes and rowing using shared equipment.<\/p>\n

Following the incident, many online criticised Hyrox’s health and safety standards, while some also questioned athlete responsibility.<\/p>\n

“Blast Hyrox. Blast the race director,” Chris Hersh posted on a Hyrox community Facebook page.<\/p>\n

“But please leave the athlete alone or have a tiny bit of empathy for someone that really just was in a horrible situation and got zero assistance from anyone in a high pressure, make a decision on the fly scenario.”<\/p>\n

Hyrox co-founder Moritz F\u00fcrste took to Instagram to apologise “to all who were directly or indirectly involved”.<\/p>\n

“Hyrox made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race,” F\u00fcrste said in a statement on Instagram.<\/p>\n

“In the end it is my job to foresee these potential incidents – and I did not.”<\/p>\n

He said that new event procedures and rules were being drawn up to “prevent situations like this from happening again”.<\/p>\n

The rules now state that if a “racer’s blood, vomit, urine, or faeces poses a welfare or contamination risk to the racer or to other racers, a race director may withdraw the racer from the race on medical grounds”.<\/p>\n

Before the rule change, competitors were penalised for littering, spitting, or clearing their nostrils onto the race course, which some online described as a double standard.<\/p>\n

Following the event in Beijing, Hyrox World issued a statement saying that “protocols designed for elite competition and mass participation became blurred, creating ambiguity in how they were applied and understood”.<\/p>\n

Hyrox China said the competition area was cleaned after the competition finished and relevant equipment was removed.<\/p>\n

It also said it would replace the floor at the venue to protect future athletes.<\/p>\n

Wietrzyk, an elite Hyrox athlete, was invited to compete at the Beijing event.<\/p>\n

She has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

The ABC has also contacted Hyrox for comment.<\/p>\n

Hyrox is held in indoor venues, with a consistent race format that lets athletes compete against each other worldwide.<\/p>\n

Organisers say it suits both elite athletes and people trying to improve their general fitness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A founder of Hyrox has apologised after an athlete who suffered sudden faecal incontinence mid-competition was allowed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[565,134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-601587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}