Hyrox athlete who witnessed woman poop herself speaks out on shocking incident

A Hyrox athlete that was at the same event where a woman soiled herself mid-competition has opened up about how he and other people there were impacted by the undeniably gruesome ordeal.

Over the weekend, Australian athlete Joanna Wietrzyk won the women’s Hyrox Pro event – but it came at a cost.

Midway through the competition, Wietrzyk pooped herself. In a now-deleted Instagram post, she addressed her win and said: "Go hard or go home … a win is a win. In all seriousness, thank you for all the support. I’ll be back soon."

Hyrox has since addressed the matter, including its co-founder Mo Fuerste. "I apologise to all that were directly or indirectly affected, as well as to everyone who felt like we did not handle the situation like we should have," Fuerste said.

"Hyrox made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race."

He went on to say that there are now 'new rules in place' to ensure a similar incident doesn't happen again.

Joe Ho, another athlete who took part in last weekend's Hyrox event, has reacted to the statements from the fitness competition and its founder and suggested that people might 'pursue legal claims and lawsuits'.

'There could be genuine physical and psychological consequences'

He said in a lengthly statement shared to Instagram: "I was at Beijing and there is another group that deserves to be addressed here too, the paying participants who were affected.

"HYROX itself acknowledges that there was ambiguity in how its health and medical protocols were applied. For people who were exposed to that situation, there could be genuine physical and psychological consequences.

"Statements like this may also become relevant if affected participants later pursue legal claims and lawsuits."

He went on to suggest that athletes should be offered compensation for what happened.

'Protecting athletes is important'

Ho's statement continued: "I paid HYROX to provide a professionally organised and safe event. So while I understand the athlete perspective, ultimately my contract and expectation is with HYROX.

"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. That would do far more to rebuild trust than simply asking everyone to move forward together."

According to VT, several participants have already asked for refunds following last weekend's debacle because they were forced to disinfect the equipment after Wietrzyk's bowel movement.

Hyrox's official statement

As well as Fuerste speaking out on the matter, an official statement was shared to the Hyrox Instagram page.

Part of it read: "To our community, as our sport continues to evolve we are encountering new and increasingly complex situations that challenge us and where additional clarity is needed. This happened this weekend in China.

"We ask our athletes to push themselves to the highest levels. At times, they will go beyond what even we thought was possible. That courage, resilience and refusal to give in are precisely what makes elite athletes so extraordinary. Our role is to give them the right framework and the right boundaries within which they can compete, perform and express themselves at their very best.

"HYROX has clear biocontaminant and medical procedures in place. In this instance, an unforeseen situation arose in which protocols designed for elite competition and mass participation became blurred, creating ambiguity in how they were applied and understood."

You can read the full statement here.