Uproar follows soiling at China Hyrox competition

The Hyrox athletics franchise has apologized for allowing an athlete to complete an event in Beijing despite soiling herself midway through, causing an outcry on social media.

Posts showed Australian athlete Joanna Wietrzyk with soiled legs and shoes, continuing to use the mats and equipment at the competition held on Saturday in the Chinese capital.

She completed the event without the organizing committee intervening, and went on to win the competition, according to the Hyrox Web site.

Participants compete during a women`s doubles race at the BYD Hyrox fitness competition in Bangkok on Aug. 13.

Photo: AP

Users pointed out on social media that other participants had to touch the contaminated mats, handles and running tracks after she had used them, raising concerns about hygiene.

Hyrox events, launched in Germany in 2018 and now held worldwide, is an indoor fitness race with a mixture of treadmill running and strength exercises, such as lunges and rowing.

It has become popular in China in the past few years.

“Why didn’t they consider the health of the other competitors and the public?” said one user on Chinese social media network Weibo.

“A foreign athlete suffered from diarrhea, soiled the course and won anyway,” another user said. “It’s pro-foreigner favoritism.”

“I apologize 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,” Hyrox co-founder Moritz Furste said in a statement on Monday. “Hyrox made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race.”

He accepted responsibility for failing to foresee the incident and said there were “new rules and procedures in place” to “prevent situations like this from happening again.”

Hyrox China did not apologize, but admitted in an earlier statement to “shortcomings” in the regulations which had prevented judges from intervening immediately during the competition.

As concerns spread, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Monday blamed “regulatory flaws that not only harm the participants’ health, but also undermine the very foundation of fairness in any competition.”