Australian Hyrox athlete Joanna Wietrzyk breaks silence after soiling herself during race

The Australian Hyrox athlete who created a global storm after soiling herself during a race has broken her silence.

Joanna Wietrzyk issued a statement on her personal Instagram page to address the situation that unravelled after her race in Beijing.

Wietrzyk and the sport of Hyrox thundered into the headlines this week after footage of the 23-year-old competing with excrement running down her legs went viral.

Her decision to keep racing and finish the event despite the potential health hazards posed to other competitors and staff received almost universal backlash.

In her post, Wietrzyk said she wanted to offer “my sincere apology to the people of China, my fellow competitors, the spectators and the Hyrox organisers for what happened during the race in Beijing”.

“I felt completely fit and healthy at the start of the race, with no reason to expect any illness,” she said.

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“Looking back, I regret the decision to not have stepped off the track. I recognise 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.”

Wietrzyk said on reflection, she had chosen to retroactively withdraw from the race and forfeit the points she earned.

“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 said.

She ended the post by thanking the people who supported “both as an athlete and as a person... and to everyone who has reached out with kindness and support”.

“I will be taking some time to recover, reflect and look after myself and my family away from the noise.”

Hyrox is an endurance racing format that holds events across the world, including in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

The race involves eight running stations of one kilometre each, which are broken up by functional workouts including ski and rowing machines.

Wietrzyk’s actions during the Beijing event sparked a response from the race format’s founder Moritz Fürste, who apologised and admitted the organisers made a mistake by allowing her to finish the race.

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“In the end, it is my job to foresee these potential incidents – and I did not,” he said.

Hyrox said it had since implemented “clear biocontaminant and medical procedures in place”.

The rules have been updated to state: “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”.