Some people are causing quite a stink.
After losing control of her bowels mid-race, Hyrox competitor Joanna Wietrzyk, 24, has divided the Internet on whether she should have rushed for the bathroom instead of the rowing machine.
Now, the reigning champ’s coach has weighed in on a truly crappy situation.
Wietrzyk went viral when photos and videos surfaced showing that she had suffered fecal incontinence before winning a Hyrox competition in Beijing — with many people expressing outrage at both the Australian athlete and race officials for not handling the situation better.
Social media users and fellow athletes complained that the other competitors were exposed not just to a dangerous and slippery situation, but also to a potential biohazard after fecal matter was smeared on shared equipment.
Although she deleted an Instagram post that stated, “Go hard or go home … a win is a win,” she received online hate, harassment and death threats.
Her coach, Chris Bayens, is now speaking out about the online abuse via Instagram, defending his star student and calling out the backlash.
Bayens described the situation that transpired as “an extraordinary set of circumstances that were unforeseen, rapidly evolving and almost impossible to fully comprehend in real time.”
Citing the decision the organization made during the competition to allow the world record holder to continue on, Bayens argued that hindsight gives time and distance to a situation and that officials faced a difficult choice.
“It is very easy to construct the perfect response once the moment has passed. Those decisions can be reviewed and lessons can be taken from them,” he wrote.
Most importantly, he hit back at the “hatred” Wietrzyk has received, calling it “ugly.”
“Judging someone’s intent, character or morality through the clarity of hindsight is neither fair nor honest,” he said. “Discussion is legitimate. The hatred and personal attacks that followed are not.”
He went on to add that the mental health of athletes is shaped by the community around them — and called on that community to “take a hard look at itself.”
“No one is perfect, not in sport, not on social media, not in real life,” he said. “What happened was extraordinary. The hatred that has followed is ugly.”
Wietrzyk certainly has been at the center of a storm of criticism.
“Honestly. Disqualify her and restart the race. A normal human would stop and not s–t themselves around people. Sorry you are stressed honey, so is everyone else,” one person wrote on X.
“Should be an immediate forfeit. Pretty selfish as others runners had to literally run and slip on her crap,” commented another.
“Not only endangered them, but it also just generally affects performance. I’d have trouble bracing me core, looking at a lady dripping s–t everywhere,” someone else chimed in on Reddit.
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 the cleanup apparently couldn’t keep pace with the mess, as participants and spectators reported that poop was left smeared on equipment and across the track, causing several athletes to fall.
Amid the uproar, it wasn’t until several days later that Hyrox finally addressed the issue, issuing a statement about 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 in a since-deleted Instagram post.
“That courage, resilience and refusal to give in are precisely what makes elite athletes so extraordinary. 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,” the athletics brand said.
“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.”
However, the statement drew more criticism, with some speculating they favored one athlete at the expense of others.
Wietrzyk is hardly the first athlete to soil themselves mid-race. Many runners will experience runner’s diarrhea, runner’s colitis or runner’s trots as blood flow is redirected away from the gastrointestinal tract and toward working muscles, causing gut irritation and diarrhea.
And loading up on concentrated sugars, fats, fiber or certain carbohydrates before a race can make matters worse, as was possibly the case for Wietrzyk — who appears to have enjoyed street food in Beijing before race day.
Since the controversy, Hyrox has updated its rulebook, giving race directors the power to withdraw an athlete if blood, vomit, urine or feces creates a risk to them or other competitors.
Any athlete removed in those circumstances will be recorded as not finishing the race.
