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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/16\/style\/hyrox-race-defecate-winner.html?emc=edit_na_20260918&nl=breaking-news&segment_id=226703",
    "parsed_content": "AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTHyrox Athlete Apologizes and Forfeits Win After Soiling Herself in RaceThe athlete kept going after the incident at a global fitness event in Beijing, leading to an uproar.Listen \u00b7 7:36 min Share full articleThe burpee jump event at a different Hyrox competition, in Bangkok, this year (where there were no hygiene emergencies of note).Credit...Amaury Paul\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty ImagesBy Madison Malone KircherSept. 16, 2026\u9605\u8bfb\u7b80\u4f53\u4e2d\u6587\u7248\u95b1\u8b80\u7e41\u9ad4\u4e2d\u6587\u7248Leer en espa\u00f1olSee more of our coverage in your search results.Encuentra m\u00e1s de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de b\u00fasqueda. Add The New York Times on GoogleAgrega The New York Times en Google Joanna Wietrzyk was about halfway to winning a Hyrox, the international fitness competition, in China over the weekend when she experienced something unpleasant but not that uncommon for high-endurance athletes: She soiled herself.But this was an indoor event with shared equipment stations, so there were concerns competitors might get sick. Wietrzyk, an elite Hyrox athlete from Australia, had visible feces running down her legs as she did burpee broad jumps and weighted lunges at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, alongside more than 100 fellow competitors \u2014 many of whom would need to pass through the same stations and use the same weights.Videos of the incident at Hyrox, the hugely popular events that combine running with exercise stations, ricocheted online and caused an uproar. In reaction posts across social media, Hyrox athletes and people in the broader fitness community and beyond criticized the event organizers and the athlete, asking why she was not pulled out of the competition. Now, Hyrox is refunding some competitors of the event after apologizing and updating its rules and procedures, and the athlete has also apologized and retroactively withdrawn from the race to forfeit her points.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTIn an email sent to Beijing competitors on Wednesday and reviewed by The New York Times, Hyrox said it would provide refunds for the value of the event ticket for athletes who competed at certain times on the same day as Wietrzyk. The email also said that after the event the \u201con-site team completed the sanitization procedures and full turf replacement\u201d and that Hyrox had updated its \u201cemergency\u2011response protocol for biological\u2011contamination incidents.\u201dWietrzyk, who did not respond to requests for comment, issued an apology on Instagram on Thursday.\u201cLooking back, I regret the decision to not have stepped off the track,\u201d she wrote, adding: \u201cI take responsibility for my decision to continue and am deeply sorry for the discomfort and disruption it caused.\u201dShe added that she had \u201cdecided to retroactively withdraw from the race and forfeit the points\u201d she had earned toward future competitions.Hyrox did not respond to requests for comment, and it was not clear how many people were refunded or for how much. Entrance fees were just over $100 for most athletes.\u201cIt\u2019s the least they could do,\u201d Joe Ho, an athlete who competed in the Beijing Hyrox, said on Wednesday of the refunds.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTIn an earlier phone conversation, he described the high costs of a Hyrox, including flights, hotels, training and time away from work.\u201cWe\u2019re paying the money to be in a safe environment,\u201d Ho said during that conversation. \u201cWe\u2019re already paying money to suffer. We\u2019re not going to Hyrox and then going, \u2018That was great.\u2019 To add additional contamination to that suffering is not something that we are paying for.\u201dHe also described watching Wietrzyk compete from the stands.\u201cEveryone could physically see that there was feces on her leg, but no one said anything,\u201d he said in a phone interview from Taipei, describing watching the lunges part of the event. \u201cIt was just, like, business as normal.\u201dHe added, \u201cPeople were behind her and next to her, and no one warned people to step aside.\u201dHe added that he did not want the athlete to be \u201cbullied\u201d or \u201chumiliated,\u201d but criticized the Hyrox organizers.Before the refund announcement, Hyrox had issued an apology on social media on Monday. Hyrox \u201cmade a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race,\u201d wrote Moritz F\u00fcrste, one of the sport\u2019s founders. F\u00fcrste added that Hyrox would be reviewing competition processes as a result of the outcry.The popularity of Hyrox, which was founded in 2017 in Hamburg, Germany, has skyrocketed in recent years; more than 1.5 million people in 30 countries have competed in at least one Hyrox race and versions of the part-running, part-strength exercise workouts are available in affiliated gyms for those looking to try their hand in a lower-pressure environment. Competitions involve shared equipment, like rowing machines and weighted sleds, and contestants are in close quarters. There are often strict rules: no spitting, no pouring water over one\u2019s head.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThat rise has also coincided with the fact that social media has become omnipresent, and Ryan Gibney, a coach in Liverpool, England, who works with elite Hyrox athletes, said that might have played a role in the global reaction to Saturday\u2019s incident.\u201cSomething that happens at a race can be filmed, clipped and distributed around the world within seconds,\u201d Gibney said in an email. \u201cSocial media also strips away a lot of context. People are watching a short piece of footage and judging an athlete\u2019s decision without necessarily understanding what that athlete is experiencing physically and psychologically in that moment.\u201dTaiyyibah Moughal, a sports dietitian who lives in Bay Shore, N.Y., said it was not all that rare for people to suddenly empty their bowels during intense sports, like distance running. The timed nature of Hyrox, compared with other events like CrossFit, means participants might be wary of wasting precious seconds.\u201cWhat bothered me was that they continued with the Hyrox, and it was an indoor event,\u201d Moughal, 45, said. \u201cIf it was an outdoor event, that\u2019s completely different, but when you\u2019re sharing machines, that is where I felt like they should have taken the situation in their hands and stopped it.\u201dRich Ryan, an elite Hyrox athlete who lives in Denver, said he had empathy for the \u201cathlete tunnel vision\u201d Wietrzyk might have been experiencing. \u201cShe\u2019s an elite athlete in this race \u2014 there are different stakes than somebody racing for fun,\u201d he said, describing how dropping out of a race could affect an athlete\u2019s livelihood and standing for future competitions.Brian Spin, who runs the endurance sport blog Barbell Spin, also said he felt the athlete should have been removed immediately by organizers.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cIn that moment, they didn\u2019t take action, and may not have understood the gravity of what was to come,\u201d Spin, who lives in Nashville, said.\u201cOnce an athlete is competing, the event has medical personnel, judges and race officials whose responsibility is to safeguard the competition and its athletes,\u201d Gibney, the Hyrox coach, said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it should be left to the athlete to decide whether they continue,\u201d he added.As Hyrox tries to pacify the online masses, Rob Perez, a fitness-content creator in Washington, D.C., who has completed nine Hyrox competitions, wondered if the recent events might deter people from future participation.\u201cWhether they\u2019re a new Hyrox athlete or looking to try their first Hyrox, a lot them are turned off, I think,\u201d Perez said, adding that the videos shared online had \u201cbeen a huge turnoff to a lot of people.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-16T23:55:54+00:00",
    "author_name": "Madison Malone Kircher",
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    "ai_headline": "Hyrox Athlete Apologizes and Forfeits Win After Soiling Herself in Race",
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    "ai_excerpt": "An elite Hyrox athlete apologized and forfeited her win after soiling herself during a fitness competition in Beijing. The incident, which involved visible feces and shared equipment, caused an uproar online and led to Hyrox issuing refunds and updating its emergency protocols.",
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