The Hyrox athlete who soiled herself while competing has apologized and forfeited her win.
“I felt completely fit and healthy at the start of the race, with no reason to expect any illness,” Joanna Wietrzyk wrote Thursday on Instagram. “Looking back, I regret the decision to not have stepped off the track. I recognize that I should have made a different choice. I take responsibility for my decision to continue and am deeply sorry for the discomfort and disruption it caused.”
She said she has decided “to retroactively withdraw from the race and forfeit the points I earned.”
The incident happened over the weekend about halfway through the competition held in China. Videos show Wietrzyk doing weighted lunges with feces running down her legs.
Hyrox, which was founded in 2017 as a fitness sport that hosts competitions all over the world, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mo Fuerste, co-founder of Hyrox, apologized earlier this week and said those running the competition did not handle the situation correctly. He also said there are new rules that will prevent something like that from happening again. There are already rules that prohibit spitting or clearing one’s nostrils onto the floor, which comes with a two-minute penalty.
Wietrzyk, who is originally from Australia, said she knows continuing to compete with feces on her legs “had an impact beyond” herself.
“I am learning from this experience and will carry those lessons with me, including remembering that there is more to life than racing and knowing when it is right to step away,” she wrote on Instagram.
She continued: “Thank you to those standing by me, both as an athlete and as a person, during this time, and to everyone who has reached out with kindness and support. It means more to me than I can properly express right now. I will be taking some time to recover, reflect and look after myself and my family away from the noise.”
Wietrzyk finished first in the competition on Saturday and shared a selfie with the caption, “Go hard or go home … a win is a win.”
Her coach said the incident was an “extraordinary set of circumstances” and it was “almost impossible to fully comprehend in real time” and that the judges and officials were responding to a situation none of them could have prepared for.
He condemned the “hatred and personal attacks” toward Wietrzyk, saying sports produce moments that are “imperfect and deeply human.”