HYROX has issued a statement in response to a viral video of an Australian competitor continuing a race after his girlfriend collapsed.
The couple had been participating in a Sydney event of the high-intensity indoor fitness competition last weekend when, according to a TikTok video posted by witness Aaron Boundy, the man’s partner “hit the deck” whilst he continued with the race.
In the video, Aaron said he had “just witnessed one of the worst things of my life”.
Today, a statement from Mat Lock, the Technical Race Director at HYROX, said the organisers were “aware of the videos circulating online” and “wish the participant a full and speedy recovery”.
He told The Tab: “As an event organiser, our primary focus is always on athlete safety. We acted swiftly in supporting the medical team and ensuring the safety, wellbeing, and privacy of the racer involved.
“We have detailed Incident Management protocols operated at all HYROX races; as such our staff were alerted via personal radio, and she was assessed immediately in situ before being relocated by wheelchair to the main medical area for further treatment, supported by the HYROX Event Directors and medical team. ”
“We are extremely proud of the professionalism and swift response demonstrated by our team, who acted quickly and with care to assist the racer. “
The statement to The Tab from Mat Lock, Technical Race Director at HYROX
In the original TikTok video – which was now been viewed more than 2.3 million times – Aaron explains what he allegedly saw.
He said: “She hit the deck, fainted, and was full twitching on the floor and then her boyfriend just kept on doing the wall balls, didn’t go over and see her.
“Then all the paramedics come over and start doing all this medical stuff to her, put barricades around her, so obviously it’s pretty fucking bad.”
He then claims that that the boyfriend walked over, tapped her on the leg, and asked the judge if he needed her to be with him in order to finish the race.
Mat Lock added that the man would still have not been eligible for a finishing time: “In line with the HYROX Rulebook, both teammates in a doubles team must complete the full race to receive an official finish time and ranking.”
TikTok users were also keen to call out the actions of the man, with one commenting: “It’s not the bloody Olympics, I could maybe understand if it was because it’s once every four years, you’re representing your whole country etc, I’d be mad but fine I could wrap my head around it, but a HYROX??”
However another commenter also questioned the version of events saying the man had “checked on his partner multiple times while she was being attended to by medics”.
Aaron also posted another video update yesterday, saying he was “very happy the name hasn’t come out of who the guy is”.
He said: “I still don’t think that it’s the right thing, but having time to think on it now it’s just like, fuck, you do weird things when you’re fatigued and I probably don’t have a right to get involved in their relationship.”
He added the couple were “fine” and he just didn’t want it to “get to a point where it was tarnishing their names”.
“I just hope the people that are involved in the video are ok and that it’s not tarnishing their whole entire image, because that’s not what I did it for – I did it for the situation of just: what the fuck’s going on?”
Featured image from @aaronboundy_ on Instagram
