Losing can be crappy — but it turns out, winning can be crappy, too.
Athlete Joanna Wietrzyk finished in first place at a Hyrox competition in Beijing over the weekend, but she soiled herself in the process, suffering fecal incontinence during the 1 hour, 1 minute and 23 seconds it took her to complete the indoor fitness competition.
Photos and video from the event show the 24-year-old Australian mid-competition with diarrhea running down her legs.
The organizers of the competition are now facing backlash for allowing her to continue to compete and potentially contaminate the shared workout equipment, including rowing machines and kettlebells.
Images from the competition have quickly gone viral on social media, sparking outrage and disgust from people who described the incident as a threat to public safety.
“Runners’ runs is one thing. But having the s—ts during an indoor competition and proceeding to continue running around spreading it everywhere is vile and selfish,” wrote one X user.
“This isn’t bravery, this is disgusting. You’re ruining the space for everyone,” chastised another.
“This should result in a hard stop for the competitor because the public health risk is more important than the medal. Hyrox has way too many shared touch points and surfaces to let this continue,” wrote a third.
Wietrzyk, however, seems unconcerned — and took to social media to boast about her win.
“Go hard or go home they say… a win is a win,” she wrote on Instagram before deleting the post as a major backlash erupted over her decision to remain in the race.
Chinese officials said staff swiftly cordoned off the affected areas, disinfected the site through the end of the day, removed contaminated equipment and arranged to replace the carpet once the event was over, according to the South China Morning Post.
But it would be several days after the stomach-churning images began circulating online before Hyrox addressed the incident, issuing a statement about what it described as the “increasingly complex situations” arising at its competitions.
“We ask our athletes to push themselves to the highest levels. At times, they will go beyond what even we thought was possible,” they wrote on Instagram.
“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.
We recognize that this can understandably lead to frustration, questions and strong views within our community. Those concerns are legitimate and, as organizers, we must be prepared to hear them, examine what happened and take responsibility for continuing to improve. And we will.”
The statement has continued to draw criticism, with commenters accusing the organization of “protecting one athlete and neglecting all the others.”
“So basically you officially made a distinction between elite competitors and mass contestants? Like someone that is better at the sport is entitled to do things someone that is not and paid to be there cannot?” asked another.
“Struggling to see the blurred line in this situation. Hyrox and Joanna both decided that her performance was more important than the health and safety of thousands of other competitors and staff,” said yet another. “Allowing athletes to use equipment covered in human feces should not be a blurred line.
This is not a complex situation.”
Hyrox co-founder Moritz Fuerste broke his silence over the incident in a statement on Monday, admitting that the organizers “made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race.”
“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,” he wrote on Instagram.
Fuerste said Hyrox has “started improving event processes, plus making rulebook changes immediately.”
“As of this moment, there are new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again,” he said.
Why would someone get diarrhea during Hyrox?
Fecal urgency or incontinence — essentially, the sudden, strong need to go or the inability to hold it in — is a real phenomenon that can happen during exercise, particularly in endurance sports.
Also known as runner’s diarrhea, runner’s colitis or runner’s trots, the uncomfortable experience can strike for several reasons.
For one, during strenuous, prolonged exercise, the body redirects blood flow away from the gastrointestinal tract and toward working muscles and other tissues that need it most in the moment.
“This decrease in blood flow can irritate the gut and cause diarrhea,” Dr. Dana Zalkin, a gastroenterologist and assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, previously told The Post.
Dehydration can make matters worse, as can loading up on concentrated sugars, fats, fiber or certain carbohydrates before a race.
In Wietrzyk’s case, the street food she appears to have enjoyed in Beijing before race day may have added fuel to the fire.
And then there’s the bouncing. The mechanical jostling that comes with activities like running and heavy lifting can also send the digestive system haywire.
“The repetitive motion of moving up and down can irritate the organs in the abdomen and cause symptoms such as nausea, abdominal cramping and the urge to defecate,” Zalkin explained.
It’s more common than you might think.
Studies suggest that about 30% to 90% of endurance athletes experience gastrointestinal problems during exercise, with rates highest among long-distance runners and triathletes.
