Hyrox Rewrites Rulebook After Champion Wins Race While Fecal Matter Ran Down Her Legs

A fitness competition let an athlete keep racing after she lost control of her bowels mid-course. It's what happened at Hyrox Beijing on September 12, and the company that ran it has now admitted, in writing, that it screwed up.

Joanna Wietrzyk, the 22-year-old Australian who holds the Hyrox women's solo world record, was competing in the age 16-24 elite race when she became ill during the fourth of eight workout stations, burpee broad jumps, according to USA Today. She kept going. Photos and video circulated afterward showing fecal matter visibly running down her legs as she moved through the seated row, farmer's carry, sandbag lunges and wall ball stations, all using equipment shared with other competitors, USA Today and The Guardian both reported.

She won. Wietrzyk finished in 1:01:23, beating American Alyssa McElheny by 45 seconds, USA Today reported.

The apology

Hyrox co-founder Moritz Fürste, a former Olympic field hockey champion from Germany, posted a statement on Instagram taking personal responsibility. "Hyrox made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race," he wrote. "In the end it is my job to foresee these potential incidents – and I did not."

That's a company founder saying, on the record, that his organization failed to protect its own customers.

The day after the race, Hyrox rewrote its rulebook. The new language, confirmed by USA Today and The Telegraph, states: "If a racer's blood, vomit, urine, or feces 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." Any such withdrawal now shows up on the leaderboard as a DNF, did not finish.

Before this, the rulebook had a two-minute penalty for spitting or clearing your nose on the floor. Nothing about feces. An archived screenshot from August 12 confirms the gap existed right up until this incident forced the change, according to USA Today.

What organizers say they did after the fact

Hyrox China said in a statement carried by The Guardian that it "immediately closed off and isolated the affected area and track, and completed comprehensive disinfection." Organizers confirmed the contaminated lanes were deep cleaned, equipment removed, and the venue carpet replaced overnight before competition resumed the next day, per The Telegraph.

That's after-the-fact cleanup. It doesn't answer why nobody pulled her from the course in real time while she was still using shared equipment.

The money question nobody's answered yet

Joe Ho, a male competitor who raced that day, raised a key point. "I paid Hyrox to provide a professionally organised and safe event," he wrote on Instagram, quoted by The Guardian and The Telegraph. "If the organisation accepts that something went wrong, why not offer affected participants refunds, credits, or some meaningful form of compensation?"

Hyrox has apologized publicly and changed its rules. It has not, based on available statements, announced any refund or compensation program for competitors exposed to contaminated equipment. Hyrox World's own statement, cited by The Guardian and The Telegraph, said its "protocols designed for elite competition and mass participation became blurred, creating ambiguity in how they were applied and understood." That's corporate language for admitting the system broke down. It's not a compensation offer.

The defense of the athlete

Wietrzyk's coach, Chris Bayens, posted a statement defending her, arguing the situation was "an extraordinary set of circumstances that were unforeseen, rapidly evolving and almost impossible to fully comprehend in real time," and that decisions were made in real time by "an athlete, judges and officials, all responding to a situation none of them could reasonably have prepared for," according to Fox News.

Athletes in the middle of an all-out race aren't in the best position to make a calm medical judgment call about their own condition, and the record shows judges standing right there didn't stop her either. Bayens also pushed back on the online abuse Wietrzyk received, saying "judging someone's intent, character or morality through the clarity of hindsight is neither fair nor honest."

Wietrzyk posted, then deleted, an Instagram selfie from what appeared to be a hospital bed, captioned "Go hard or go home … a win is a win," according to NDTV and The Guardian. Hyrox itself condemned the backlash she received, warning in its own statement that anyone making threats against her would be permanently banned from all Hyrox events.

The rule change is done. The apology is on the record. What's still open is whether the roughly 1.5 million people who pay to compete in Hyrox events worldwide each year, per The Guardian, get anything more than a rewritten rulebook the next time an organizer's judgment call puts them next to contaminated gear.