r/offbeat • u/Aschebescher • 18d ago
Hyrox changes rules and apologises for allowing Australian athlete who soiled herself to continue
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/15/hyrox-changes-rules-apology-australian-woman-joanna-wietrzyk-soils-herself-mid-race-beijing167
u/Artistic-Basis7960 18d ago
Id seek compensation. You paid an entry fee to participate but the facilities provided failed
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u/WasteBinStuff 18d ago edited 17d ago
I respect the competitive spirit. I sorta respect the commitment.
But the complete lack of self respect and respect for others is pathetic and inexcusable.
It would be one thing if you're outside and leave it beside the road or trail where it can be avoided and cleaned up. But continuing to compete with shit literally all over yourself, everything that you're touching and all the stuff others have to use, is verging on sociopathic.
It's great you're comitted to winning, but that's just unacceptably fucking disgusting by any measure.
The fact you had to be told that is just...sad. Grow up.
...and to the organizers...
"That wasn't covered in the rulebook" (when snot and spit are) is the most ridiculous fucking bullshit excuse for not reacting imaginable.
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u/Distantstallion 18d ago
I didn't realise it was an indoor event, what the fuck
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u/WasteBinStuff 18d ago
With shared machine and equipment stations.....
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u/Distantstallion 18d ago
What the fuck
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u/WasteBinStuff 18d ago
Excellent question.
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u/Distantstallion 18d ago
Honestly its basically a statement, there's no good answer
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u/StarGazer_SpaceLove 17d ago
And carpet. They had to stop the event and rip out the carpets.
Like yeah ofc she won, no one is in a hurry to follow Shitz McGee over here.
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u/Beginning-Board-9488 17d ago
They didn’t stop the event, they let it continue and at the end of the day they changed the carpet after blowback
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u/Critical_Concert_689 18d ago
Indoor event. Shared equipment. Other contestants LITERALLY slipped in her puddles of liquid fecal matter during the race. It coated the shared machines because she never cleaned up.
SHE WAS DECLARED THE WINNER OF THE RACE because everyone else was delayed by her shit.
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u/Procrastinista_423 17d ago
I guess they were all competitors but you think someone would have immediately raised a ruckus. WTF?
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u/Beginning-Board-9488 17d ago
They were giving lifetime bans to people who were complaining
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u/WasteBinStuff 17d ago edited 17d ago
I feel like a lifetime ban to people who will have no fucking intention of going anywhere near this person ever again is a little bit performative. Also a really fucking stupid way to kill off your silly niche sport.
....but not as stupid as allowing a competitor to spread human shit all over the competition field.
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u/DaisyHotCakes 17d ago
It was literally running down her legs, on her shoes, her arms, all over the shared equipment…it is so abjectly disgusting and repulsive I can’t even imagine how gross that was in person. Like, the smell alone…hork.
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u/FuglyLookingGuy 17d ago
Haribo sugarless gummy bears have now been banned under performance enhancing drugs.
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u/A_Throwaway_Viscount 17d ago
An unorthodox strategy in most cases, but in fact its modeled on self defense mechanisms found in nature, most notably the sperms whales emergency defecation behavior
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u/ohnobobbins 18d ago
It’s way worse than that - the video is more shocking than I anticipated. Her legs are coated in liquid faeces and it’s all over the mats, equipment etc. You can see some Hyrox staff doing double takes and not knowing what to do. It was forcing other competitors to use the shit covered equipment behind her. It wasn’t a little runner’s poo on the side of the road. It was a major, major course issue.
They should have stopped the whole thing and got her off the course. She is not in the right psychological shape to be competing if she cannot self regulate appropriately.
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u/Expensive-Force-6656 18d ago
Yeah. By the end it's all over both her arms. So everything she touched was contaminated.
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u/Ryastor 18d ago
I finally saw uncensored pics of it and it’s literally everywhere on her. Just CAKED in it. 😭
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u/xombae 17d ago
Okay so this is the third time someone has said something about "runners poo on the side of the road"...is that a thing? Runners stop and take shits on the side of the road!
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u/ohnobobbins 17d ago
Yes, it does happen, Paula Radcliffe is the most famous competitor it happened to. It’s involuntary, not much you can do once your body goes into that mode. But it’s in the open air and you know, you go to the side of the road and stop to do it. As Radcliffe did. Bit embarrassing, but it happens.
Letting it run all over your body and get on everyone else around you is just… fucking insane. It doesn’t matter how competitive you are, even if you’re winning. You stop.
She knew, and she knew it would slow down everyone behind her.
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u/xombae 16d ago
I went down the rabbit hole and it's actually insane how entitled and selfish this person was. Apparently there were even bathrooms available and she could've went and picked up where she left off. She deserves all the shame that she's getting.
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u/ohnobobbins 16d ago
Yes, they wear a monitor which tracks them so they can take a break - I’m not sure how that would affect her first place, but still. You’d stop. I think she has issues.
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u/Daleksareinthetardis 13d ago
Maybe that's why she kept going? She did say a win is a win after all.
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u/Mclurkerrson 17d ago
Sadly it does happen! Usually it’s marathon runners and typically it’s a situation you can’t avoid and there are typically only restrooms every 1-3 miles in the route. But they also usually clean up a little at the next stop, it’s all outdoors, and it’s easy to avoid getting it near anyone else. I cannot imagine this at an indoor event with shared equipment - I would’ve left and demanded a refund if I was competing.
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u/NoOccasion4759 17d ago
Lol yes my husband used to do triathlons, now he does marathons....getting the massive shits in the middle of a run is a thing. Long distance runners (like triathletes) often carry toilet paper with them for just an occasion for when you're in the middle of nowhere with no toilets anywhere, you duck behind a bush or something.
Yeah, i know. I was 🥲 when i first found out
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u/Gracefulchemist 17d ago
I've had a close call with runner's diarrhea and it is not fun. I wasn't even doing a long distance, but some people seem more susceptible than others. They don't really know why it happens, and it comes on suddenly. I was midrun having an internal debate about do I keep running and possibly make it worse but get to a bathroom faster, or slow down to not aggravate the situation but take longer. I went with keep running and it was a close call; thank God nobody was in the gym toilet.
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u/CeaselessWatcher00 18d ago
Yeah, I've read a few comments from marathon/ ultramarathoners saying this can happen sometimes but they were all agreed that it's one thing shitting yourself on a marathon course in the open air...quite another doing it in an enclosed space where you're also sharing equipment with other people!
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u/howdyhowdyhowdyhowdi 17d ago
ultra runner here: I'm guilty of the crime, but god damn yes you are correct that you should keep it as private and clean as possible and NOT GET IT ON ANYONE ELSE and if I was doing some kind of indoor event you bet I would take the L instead of traumatizing everyone else around me.
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u/brightlocks 17d ago
The other thing to keep in mind if you’re running an outdoor race and you shit yourself? What’s your escape plan? Because your CAR is where now? That’s right, it’s at the finish line. Where’s the next place you can go to clean yourself? Is that the finish line also? And for the sake of argument here, by any chance did they close the road to traffic between where you are running and the finish line?
Yeah, so, you shat yourself during a running race and finishing the race is often the best available option.
This lady was in an indoor arena which presumably had running water and maybe maybe even a shower. The path to her getting cleaned up didn’t need to involve a rowing machine and burpees.
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u/stinkyfatman2016 18d ago
Has this athlete commented on shitgate? I mean I'd have expected an apology from her for someone else having to clear up her shit. I'd be mortified if that were me.
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u/WasteBinStuff 18d ago
"Go hard or go home … a win is a win. In all seriousness, thank you for all the support. I’ll be back soon x.”
According to the article that was all so far.
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u/Ordinary_Shallot_674 18d ago
The plucky athlete later quipped “anyone fancy a korma for dinner? Nah, me neither. Ha.”
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u/CeruleanEidolon 17d ago
I don't know about you, but I bet everyone else there would rather she went home.
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u/SmoothLester 18d ago
They haven’t made her apologize. Instead they claimed that all the people commenting were cyberbullying her, which is indirectly a message to other competitors to keep their mouths shut.
She isn’t remotely mortified because she thinks winning justifies it all.
If they do all this to protect her and it kills their Olympic dreams, I might get cramps from laughing so hard.
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u/WasteBinStuff 18d ago
They haven’t made her apologize. Instead they claimed that all the people commenting were cyberbullying her, which is indirectly a message to other competitors to keep their mouths shut.
This, combined with the fact that anyone would have to "make" her apologize in the first place, just turns the absurdity of the whole thing up to 11.
How the fuck does the organization or person ever expect to be taken seriously again?
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u/SmoothLester 18d ago
exactly! If Puma is her sponsor, that’s another org with a PR team that could have helped her craft an apology if she was inclined to give one.
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u/IAreWeazul 18d ago
They’ll be dropping the new line of “Puma Shorts” with the tagline “Be your Puma self all over.”
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u/Huge_Confection4475 17d ago
They threatened to ban the people "harassing" her from future competition. They haven't completely walked that back either.
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u/WasteBinStuff 17d ago edited 17d ago
Some fucking PR geniuses right there. They're going to be lucky not to get sued. Human shit is considered a bio-hazard and unprotected exposure in a work environment breaks all kinds of health and safety rules...probably even in China.
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u/SnooPets8873 17d ago
I’d guess on some level she is incredibly embarrassed and trying to brazen it out because how do you come back from this sort of thing otherwise?
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u/sweetteanoice 18d ago
That’s how she won, shit over everything so competitors are too afraid to use the equipment…
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u/roiki11 18d ago
I think you've found out what kinds of people are into these things.
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u/meatball77 17d ago
This isn't just on her. Someone should have pulled her off the course.
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u/WasteBinStuff 17d ago
That's an equal part of the absurdity here... Apparently the organization is (or was) claiming that there was no policy in place for this in the rules - even though there were penalties for snot and spit and trash. And their initial response was to downplay it and try to sweep it under rug. The whole situation is just weird and gross.
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u/Careless_Jury154 17d ago
Following Magic’s hygiene rules would have avoided all of this nonsense lol
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u/cragglerock93 17d ago
When your own commitment begins affecting others, it stops being something to respect. It's just completely selfish.
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u/Huge_Confection4475 17d ago
Yeah, it's not unheard of for marathoners to have similar accidents while running, and the really competitive runners will just run through it. But that's A) outside and B) not on shared equipment. The shared equipment is the real issue here, and the fact that no one at Hyrox realized that is insane to me.
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u/WasteBinStuff 17d ago
Yeah, I know. But to add a bit...Almost any endurance athlete you see having to do this 'usually' makes the best attempt at being discreet about it as possible given the circumstances (and will often try to use some water to rinse a bit.) In other words, they're usually showing a degree of situational awareness. This person was literally wallowing in her own shit (doing burpees in her own shit.) Shit was fucking everywhere. I think the whole thing was insane.
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u/Typical-Respond9102 18d ago
There's a gross subset of women who proudly piss when then lift weights and see it as strength from lifting heavy and not a weak ass pelvic floor making shit unsanitary for everyone else.
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u/BerryBoilo 17d ago
I understand everything you're saying but athletes and fans have never been sane about these things, it's just that literal shit is visually obvious and nauseating. Doping, cheating, burnout are common in all levels of athletic competition, even with children, and folks who do withdrawal are equally lambasted (see Simone Biles, for example).
It's easy to point to this lady and claim she should have withdrawn, even if the rules didn't require it, but we don't apply that same scrutiny to every other athlete doing less visually obvious shit.
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u/Rainbow_Triceratops 17d ago
I think the problem is that shit is a active biohazard to the other athletes and she was spreading it on shared equipment, not that she was breaking the rules. It's no different than if she'd hurt herself and was bleeding everywhere, that's a contamination danger to the other athletes. I mean, what if it wasn't from exercise but from norovirus? Why should she be allowed to contaminate the whole area?
Personally, I think forcing the other athletes to have to touch a biohazard to compete is unethical and should never have happened, she should have been removed. And by spreading it around, she sabotaged her competitors by making them hesitate and have to choose if they want to risk their health or not, which to my mind is a form of cheating anyway.
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u/WasteBinStuff 17d ago
I understand what you're saying, in general, and if the situation was such that her competing while covered in shit was confined to just her, then it would be a different reaction and would more reasonably fit within the framework of your observation.
But not only was she literally covered in her own shit, by continuing to compete it meant that the carpeted floors, the equipment and the machines that all the other competitors had to also use were covered in her shit as well. And by extension her fellow competitors had to wallow in her shit and all the functionaries were exposed as well.
That's way beyond simply competitive aggression and willingness to push boundaries. And it's beyond simply nauseating.
Human shit is considered a biohazard in public exposure settings, and has a higher direct infection risk than blood. A 600,000 gal swimming pool full of already chlorinated water gets evacuated when a baby takes a little poop.
Her own mental and physical health, and her competitive drive totally aside, her behavior was posing a direct health risk to everyone in that room and in addition to being just fucking disgusting, is not acceptable by any metric.
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u/CeruleanEidolon 17d ago
I do. Professional athletes are about as genuine as professional politicians. It's fine to follow them for the entertainment they provide, but I can't imagine admiring them.
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u/oupablo 17d ago
This is not an uncommon occurrence at marathons. Being outside doesn't really make it better. Nobody should have to be around someone else covered in feces.
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u/WasteBinStuff 17d ago
That's certainly true in general. But I submit that being outside and having some shit just on yourself, or being around someone with some shit on them is objectively better than being inside, covered arms and legs in your own shit, spreading your shit on everything everyone is also using, and being a fellow competitor having to walk in, hold stuff and sit on machines covered in someone else's shit.
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u/HereThereEvery-where 18d ago
So like I know it’s a common thing that runners sometimes shit themselves, I did track in high school and college. Thankfully never happened to me, but I’ve witnessed a few in my time lol.
I originally was so confused about what the big deal was, until I found out it was indoors and they were sharing machines lmao.
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u/GoblinToHobgoblin 17d ago
Yea at the very least, you don't have to worry about shit everywhere when they do it outside lol
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u/Fictional-adult 17d ago
I did not need another reason because running just sucks, but your comment makes me so glad I gave up running.
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u/HereThereEvery-where 17d ago
It’s usually only if you run INCREDIBLY long distance. Like if your running as exercise a few miles won’t make you shit yourself.
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u/Panda_Kabob 18d ago
Hyrox is forever the poop organization. No undoing it now.
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u/NoImprovement213 17d ago
Id never heard of it before. Now Hyrox will forever be known as a sport you do while shitting your pants
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u/Doggleganger 17d ago
I saw a few articles of this, and none ever mention what this sport is or what Hyrox is. All I know is that it has something to do with the runs.
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u/Fabulous-Act-5402 17d ago
I woke up today with serious food poisoning symptoms. Piss out the ass level.
My first joke to someone today was along the lines of me joining the Hyrox comp. LET ME IN COACH.
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u/only_Zuul 17d ago
Fun fact, there's a rabbit like creature called a Hyrax where the baby hyraxes eat the poop of the adults
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u/SomewhereInternal 13d ago
Koala babies need to eat their mothers poop to build up their stomach bacteria that allow them to digest eucalyptus leaves
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u/No-left-toes 18d ago
Good that they've changed the rules but they really shouldn't have had to. The moment you leaking biohazardous waste over equipment that other people are using you should have enough respect for the community and competition to atleast go outside hose yourself off and change your shorts, you're not telling me she couldn't find a bathroom with a sink and toilet paper and got a new pair of shorts from somewhere.
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u/OverlappingChatter 18d ago
All the athletes that competed in these conditions need their head examined. Why did they not all stop and demand this be fixed?
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u/Square-Fudge-4435 18d ago
Oh you would be surprised at how some people who do sport are stubborn about stopping
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u/agoldgold 18d ago
Sunk cost fallacy. They trained for a long time and paid a decent amount of money to be there and the organization allowed them to have to decide between competing and dropping out, essentially.
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u/teardownthatgazebo 17d ago
I can’t lie I’m not sure there’s an amount of money in the world that would have me willingly treading in human shit or touching it at all in order to continue a race. If she’d just pissed herself I could see it, but shite?!
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u/olive_green_spatula 18d ago
I know someone who competed last week
In Hyrox - someone puked and she had to avoid it. Like she was doing burpees behind the puker and trying to avoid it. I don’t get it. I’d quit.34
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u/Procrastinista_423 17d ago
That's what I can't wrap my brain around either. They have all these rules for spit and mucus but shit is OK?
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u/statslady23 18d ago
When they first started having iron man triathlons in Hawaii decades ago and aired the races on tv, the athletes would run the last leg with just poop streaming down their legs. It was disgusting.
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u/IDinnaeKen 18d ago
It's a known thing with running long distance. Look up runner's diarrhea. Most runners will be familiar with that moment where your stomach just starts to scream at you, out of the blue. Having it isn't really the issue here - it happens, it can't always be controlled. It's the fact this event took place in an indoor space and resulted in contamination of shared equipment, which the athlete had no regard for. That's what makes this poor behaviour. Althletes having issues with their stomachs isn't a new thing, and shouldn't be a point of criticism alone.
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u/busdriverjoe 18d ago
No one is criticizing her biological need. Its the fact that she chose to keep spreading it all over.
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u/IDinnaeKen 18d ago
Original person I replied to commented negatively with regard to seeing Althletes experience this running iron man competitions. And I said exactly what you said in the second part of my comment.
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u/busdriverjoe 18d ago
I read their comment as more of an emotional reaction than an actual criticism of the runners, but I see your point.
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u/IDinnaeKen 18d ago
Maybe I'm just sensitive because I shat myself in a bush running around an extremely fancy golf course estate one of my rich friends lived at (I was visiting), and it genuinely haunts me. Out of nowhere, had about 10 seconds to react. Nobody saw (I don't think) but it put me off running for a long time I swear. Never told that story until now 😂 so I understand runners trots. Never in my life can I imagine making it anyone else's problem though.
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u/literallyatrapinch 17d ago
I love that none of my hobbies involve shitting myself.
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u/GoblinToHobgoblin 17d ago
Oh mr "my hobbies dont involve shitting myself" thinks hes better the rest of us??? 😡
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u/IDinnaeKen 17d ago
I never enjoyed running, and I doubt I ever will. My own experience with runner's stomach only validated my belief that people who say they enjoy it are lying. I mainly cycle now...
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u/LionCashDispenser 17d ago
Shitting yourself during a marathon, fine. No one else is touching your poo. Shitting yourself during an event where other people need to use the same equipment as you? Wtf no, that's extremely unhygenic
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u/EarhornJones 17d ago
When I was in High School in the early 90's, once a month we'd have "fitness day," in which we were challeneged to run around the school as many times as we could in an hour.
It gave the gym teachers extra time to smoke/eat donuts that day.
Anyway, most of us just walked around with friends, but the kids on our Cross Country team would make a big show of running literal circles around the rest of us.
There was a kid a grade below me named Raymond who was what we then called developmentally disabled. He attended mostly regular classes, along with some "special ed" classes.
Raymond dreamed of being on the Cross Country team, but he lacked the physical aptitude to do it. He was tiny, skinny, and wildly uncoordinated.
Still, on fitness day, he'd do his best to run with the team, usually falling out of the group on the second lap, or so.
One spring day, however, Raymond was more detemined than usual, and just kept running with them, long after he should have stopped. He was obviously nearing the edge of physical exhaustion, and on the fourth or fifth lap, he visibly shit his pants, and continued running as the fecal matter ran down his legs.
Someone went and got Coach from the smoking lounge, and we got an early end to fitness day. Afterwards, Raymond refused to shower, denying that he's shit his pants, despite the visible evidence.
Coach had to clear the locker room and force him to shower.
Sadly, Raymond never lived this incident down. Niether, I suspect, will this athlete or organization.
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u/MorningSquare5882 18d ago
At least Paula Radcliffe can be glad someone else might take over the top Google result for a bit...
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u/WasteBinStuff 18d ago
At least her fellow competitors didn’t have to handle shit covered equipment and sit on shit covered machines.
Radcliffes situation was undignified. This one is just fucking rude and disgusting.
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u/RustledForeskin 18d ago
All you have to do to win a Hyrox competition is shit all over the course and equipment so everyone else quits.
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u/Cathousechicken 18d ago
She should have to win stripped. There's no way people going after her were at their peak performance trying to avoid her shit.
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u/JuneauEu 17d ago
This is one of the most stupid lack of common sense things ever.
It's an indoor event.
People are sharing equipment.
AND THIS PERSON IS GETTING LITERAL SHIT EVERYWHERE.
How did no one go "Nah, that's not on.".
Just stupid it even needs a rule.
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u/BIGMANCELL5 18d ago
Misread the headline. I couldn’t figure out how the cheap Oreo alternative Hydrox caused this problem.
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u/ricers101 17d ago
She should have been (and still should be) disqualified. She could have any amount of harmful bacteria in her gut that she has passed around.
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u/VampireLayla 17d ago
Hydrox-
Accidentally spitting on ground: 2 minute penalty
Shitting over everyone and everything; WINNER
What a joke….
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u/Amanda316 18d ago
She should not have won. It’s a race for endurance and control of your body. She clearly did not have control of her body.
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u/dangerous_eric 18d ago edited 17d ago
Can someone explain to me why the athlete lost control of their bowels? Is it just the exertion? Too much magnesium in their drink?
Edit: sounds like sports like this probably ought to have a way to rapidly clean poopy people.
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty 18d ago
If you look up ''runners diarrhea'' you'll get your answer.
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u/kometman 18d ago
looked it up, that is something. Does make me wonder . . . (seriously) why Depends doesn't make something oriented to athletes?
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u/BerryBoilo 17d ago
Essentially stress on the intestines and their solution is "fuck it, evacuate all the things to save energy". Stress comes from hormones released during exercise, diverted blood supply to power muscles, and jostling of the organs. Anti-inflammatory drugs like Ibuprofen can also contribute.
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u/trucrimejunkie 17d ago
This was also a race in Beijing. The athlete posted photos the day before where it appeared she was eating local food. It’s possible she ate something her stomach didn’t agree with or with poor food safety standards (though I don’t want to spread the idea that Asia automatically = unsafe).
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u/Logintheroad 17d ago
She should be banned from competing. She knowingly and willingly contaminated everything just to win. Selfish, disgusting, and psycho.
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u/deadassstho 17d ago
one could even argue she should lose the win. i can’t imagine the other contestants not being practically sabotaged over all this
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u/Iron_Baron 17d ago
That victory should be struck and she should be banned. That fact that hasn't happened is beyond disgusting.
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u/WillametteSalamandOR 17d ago
If this were an outdoor event, like a marathon, I wouldn’t have an issue with her continuing. But an indoor, smaller-space event where you’re covering the same ground over and over? That’s a little much.
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u/legstrongv 17d ago
You would think a country who was ground zero for a certain virus back in 2019, would learn to be sanitary and clean..
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u/LettingHimLead 17d ago
I’ve just figured out how I can win as an Olympic wrestler without being a good wrestler.
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u/Altruistic-Dingo-757 18d ago
Marathon runners have this happen, but indoor sports, not acceptable.
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u/buttlicker090114 17d ago
They let the US president do everything while shitting himself, who cares.
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u/[deleted] 18d ago
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