Man who took part in HYROX event where woman soiled herself shares brutal statement

An athlete who participated in the HYROX event where a woman soiled herself has called them out as he released a statement critical of the organisation.

The event in Beijing on Saturday (12 September) was marred when Joanna Wietrzyk suffered faecal incontinence while competing and carried on going.

Many of the other athletes doing the same course as her weren't thrilled about this and concerns were raised about the hygiene and safety of the event, with the equipment having to be sterilised and bits of the carpet replaced in the aftermath of the pooey performance.

HYROX released a statement saying they would be taking action and understood the frustration, but asked for it not to be directed at the athletes competing.

One of the other athletes who competed, Joe Ho, released his own statement on Instagram calling for HYROX to take responsibility and acknowledge the consequences.

"I was at Beijing and there is another group that deserves to be addressed here too, the paying participants who were affected," he said.

"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.

"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."

In response to the faecal incident HYROX made a change to their rules in the hopes of preventing something like this from happening again.

They've updated their rulebook to say: “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, in line with HYROX’s medical and hygiene SOPs.

“Any such withdrawal is recorded on the leaderboard as Did Not Finish."

It doesn't means someone in that situation is guaranteed to be withdrawn from the race and issued a DNF by the Race Director, but HYROX will likely wish to avoid having a similar incident considering the backlash to the Beijing event.