Hyrox has apologised and changed its rules after allowing an Australian athlete to continue and win a Beijing race despite soiling herself.
The Melbourne-based athlete was participating in the Pro Women’s race at the National Speed Skating Oval on Saturday when she lost control of her bowels.
Footage circulated online showed her continuing with the race, including on shared equipment, with faecal matter on her legs. She finished in 1 hour 1 minute and 23 seconds and won the event.
Facing backlash over the incident, Hyrox co-founder Moritz Fürste apologised to “everyone directly or indirectly affected”.
“Hyrox made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race. In the end it is my job to foresee these potential incidents and I did not,” he said in a statement posted on Instagram.
Fürste said that Hyrox had also begun “ improving event processes, plus making rulebook changes immediately”.
“As of this moment, there’re new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again. We learn and try to get better everyday.”
The revised rules will allow a race director to withdraw an athlete on medical grounds if their “blood, vomit, urine, or faeces poses a welfare or contamination risk to the racer or to other racers”.
Before the rule change, athletes could be penalised for “spitting, nostril clearing, littering, and water abuse” and the organisers could remove or disqualify competitors whose actions endangered fellow participants or breach event rules.
Hyrox is a gruelling indoor fitness event that combines running with functional exercises like sled pushes, rowing, burpee broad jumps, and wall balls. Unlike a traditional marathon or obstacle race, every Hyrox event uses the same format and distances, allowing competitors around the world to compare their times directly.
The competition has grown rapidly since it was founded in Hamburg in 2017, with more than 100 events scheduled globally in 2026 and over 500 affiliated gyms offering Hyrox-specific training in China.
After the Beijing incident, Hyrox China said it had “immediately closed and isolated the affected areas and race lanes after the incident, thoroughly disinfected them and removed affected equipment”.
It added that the venue’s carpets would be replaced and the entire site deep-cleaned after racing.
Hyrox World released a statement saying “courage, resilience and refusal to give in are precisely what makes elite athletes so extraordinary” and the frustration over the situation should “never be directed towards the athletes themselves”.
Anyone responsible for violent language against the athlete in question would be permanently banned from all Hyrox events, it warned.
Participant Joe Ho, who wrote that he was at the Beijing event, questioned Hyrox’s responsibility towards competing athletes.
“I paid Hyrox to provide a professionally organised and safe event,” he wrote. “If the organisation accepts that something went wrong, why not offer affected participants refunds, credits or some meaningful form of compensation? Protecting athletes is important, but showing the wider community that HYROX takes responsibility when its own procedures fail is just as important.”
Another athlete training for their first Hyrox event said they were reconsidering attending now as the handling of the Beijing incident “does not demonstrate that safety, sanitation, and the well-being of all competitors are the first priority”.
Several people questioned whether the Australian athlete was treated differently from other competitors because of her elite status.
“I understand that she is an elite athlete, undoubtedly with huge, world-renowned brands sponsoring her behind the scenes,” one person wrote.
“But what about the other athletes? Whether they are professionals or amateurs, they all deserve respect.”
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