Imagine spending four or five months training at the gym without fail, paying nearly RMB 1,000 (USD 149) for a race entry, then adding coaching fees, equipment, transportation, and accommodation. The total approaches a five-figure RMB sum.
Now you are at Hyrox Beijing, with one goal: to set a new personal best.
You complete the first kilometer on pace. The SkiErg, a machine that simulates cross-country skiing, goes smoothly. After the sled push, you enter the straightaway for the third kilometer and even overtake two competitors.
That is when you notice something running down the calf of the athlete ahead. She has soiled herself, but she shows no sign of stopping.
No one calls a halt. In theory, you have a choice. The rulebook does say that athletes who believe they cannot continue may withdraw voluntarily. But doing so would mean throwing away nearly half a year of effort.
The scene raises a question that training cannot answer: who decides when a race should stop?
Hyrox’s response suggests its global expansion has outpaced the rules and procedures needed to protect participants.
The backstory
Two days after the incident, on September 14, Hyrox co-founder Moritz Furste apologized to “all there were directly or indirectly affected, as well as to everyone who felt like we did not handle the situation like we should have.”
Hyrox “made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race,” Furste said in a statement published on Instagram.
The apology marked a sharp shift from Hyrox’s position a day earlier.
Earlier, Hyrox had published an official statement on overseas social media defending the athlete involved. The athlete herself deleted a controversial post saying, “A win is a win,” after the race. At the time of the original report, she had yet to publicly apologize to other competitors over the contamination of the course.
Hyrox’s reversal appeared to be a response to mounting public pressure.
After the incident, videos and photos from the venue spread rapidly across Chinese and international social media, undermining trust in the organizer.
One Beijing competitor pointed to an apparent inconsistency: Hyrox’s newly published rules allow a two-minute penalty for spitting, yet officials did not require the athlete to withdraw after she contaminated the course.
The speed and scale of the backlash also reflect Hyrox’s growing popularity.
Globally, about 1.1 to 1.3 million people complete marathons each year. Hyrox recorded about 550,000 finishers in the 2024–2025 season. Infront, its former majority owner, said the 2025–2026 season drew more than 1.4 million participants and more than 1.5 million spectators, per Reuters.
Those figures put Hyrox participation on a scale comparable to marathon running. Marathon participants and the spending around them sustain a market worth tens of billions of RMB, an opportunity Hyrox’s organizers have reason to pursue.
Hyrox was designed from the outset as a commercial race aimed at middle-class consumers.
Of its three founders, one was an athlete and two came from marketing.
They set out to give people who considered fitness their sport a defined event to compete in.
The three founders came up with a format consisting of eight one-kilometer runs, alternating with eight functional workout stations. The entire competition takes place indoors. Only total time is counted, with results entered into a unified global ranking system.
The first Hyrox race was held at Hamburg Messe in Germany in 2017, with just 650 participants.
One of the founders later said their goal at the time was to use a EUR 200,000 (USD 230,000) budget to create a high-end spectacle that looked like it cost EUR 2 million (USD 2.3 million), helping attract urban middle-class consumers accustomed to a high-quality lifestyle.
Hyrox had a difficult start after entering Asia because its brand image was considered too elite.
In response, organizers began to soften the competitive emphasis of individual divisions and put more focus on relay and mixed formats, recasting the race as both a new form of corporate team-building and a social activity for the middle class.
The strategy worked. Hyrox’s first Beijing event in 2024 drew only 1,700 participants. By May of the following year, two races in Shanghai attracted more than 10,000 participants combined and became a popular topic on social media. Hyrox-related content on Douyin generated more than ten billion views.
As Hyrox attracted middle-class consumers willing to spend on health and lifestyle, sponsors followed.
In addition to Puma, which has held title sponsorship rights since Hyrox’s earliest days, Hyrox events in China are covered with the logos of sportswear brands, cosmetics companies, nutrition brands, wearable makers, and even automotive brands.
Some competitors race shirtless with brand logos plastered across their torsos, earning them the joking description of “walking billboards.”
Hyrox generated roughly EUR 135–140 million (USD 154.9–160.7 million) in revenue in fiscal 2025.
As it continues to expand rapidly around the world, particularly in Asia, CNBC has reported a revenue forecast of USD 270 million in 2026.
Shortly before the incident, Hyrox’s founders bought back Infront’s majority stake with a consortium led by L Catterton. The new ownership group plans to expand the competition and its commercial reach.
The question is whether race management can keep up.
Who calls a halt?
When the controversy first erupted, Hyrox’s global organization attributed its failure to intervene to an “unforeseen situation.”
In its statement, it argued that the race plan for elite athletes had become “confused” with the plan used for the broader event, creating ambiguity over how the rules should be applied and interpreted. As a result, officials failed to intervene in time.
A look at Hyrox’s revenue structure helps explain the commercial stakes of stopping a race.
The competition relies heavily on athlete entry fees and ticket revenue. Any decision that disrupts the normal running of an event, damages the participant experience, or leads athletes to withdraw could affect its revenue and reputation.
Major city marathons offer a useful comparison.
For instance, the New York City Marathon’s largest revenue category combines commercial sponsorship and charitable contributions, at roughly USD 50.5 million, followed closely by mass-participation entry fees of about USD 49.2 million.
The two revenue streams are almost evenly split. Sponsors, charitable organizations, and donors therefore contribute roughly as much revenue as mass-participation entry fees.
Hyrox is different. According to an analysis by sports business publication SportsPro, entry fees and ticket revenue account directly for 55–65% of Hyrox’s total revenue. Sponsorship contributes about 15%, with the remainder coming from merchandise licensing and sales.
The Times has cited a higher figure, saying entry fees account for as much as 90% of revenue.
Australian financial firm SBO Financial has estimated that Hyrox events globally carry a gross margin of as much as 80%.
Participants also promote the race on social media, sharing an image of fitness and discipline that helps the organizer reach new customers.
A Hyrox founder has also said that an individual event can break even with around 1,500 registered athletes.
There is another difference. New York Road Runners (NYRR), the organizer of the New York City Marathon, is a nonprofit organization, as are many organizers of the world’s leading marathons. Much of the surplus they generate must be reinvested in community and public benefit programs.
Hyrox, by contrast, generated about EUR 133 million (USD 152.6 million) in revenue in fiscal 2025 and around EUR 30 million (USD 34.4 million) in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), producing an EBITDA margin of 23%.
Those business models create different financial pressures. They do not, by themselves, explain why Hyrox officials failed to intervene.
An unsubstantiated claim also circulated on Chinese social media that the athlete’s status as a global Puma ambassador influenced the decision to let her continue. Neither Hyrox nor Puma had responded to it at the time of the original report.
The speculation nevertheless shows how the incident has damaged confidence in the organizer’s impartiality.
The fallout is not over
Several sports industry professionals interviewed by 36Kr previously said that the “ambiguity” in Hyrox’s equipment requirements could ultimately limit its ability to commercialize further.
“Other than having certain requirements for footwear, Hyrox participants can get through the race in virtually any sportswear with quick-drying properties,” one said.
Puma’s disclosures suggest that its close association with Hyrox has yet to become a major source of revenue.
Puma CEO Arthur Hoeld has described Hyrox as a “lighthouse” partnership on earnings calls. At the same time, he has acknowledged that the company’s training business still contributes only a single-digit percentage of total group revenue.
Puma has yet to disclose any specific sales figures directly attributable to Hyrox.
Those disclosures suggest the partnership currently matters more to Puma’s brand strategy than to its revenue.
The limited need for specialized equipment has also made other sportswear giants cautious about entering the category.
Adidas, Nike, and On have all introduced footwear suitable for hybrid fitness training, emphasizing stronger grip and greater forefoot flexibility.
But whether because of exclusive sponsorship arrangements or other considerations, none has tied product naming closely to Hyrox. Instead, they describe the category more broadly as “training” or “hybrid training.”
For L Catterton, the challenge may only be beginning. As a consumer-focused investment firm backed by LVMH, its investment approach centers on finding consumer assets capable of defining a middle-class lifestyle.
Its investment reflects the appeal of both the races and a brand built around premium consumption, self-discipline, and middle-class social life.
But if those associations turn negative, its appeal to high-net-worth consumers and premium crossover sponsors could weaken.
The pace of Hyrox’s global expansion and monetization appears to have outpaced the development of its race-safety systems, referee training, and crisis-response mechanisms.
Hybrid fitness has faced far graver safety failures. On August 8, 2024, athlete Lazar Dukic drowned during an open-water swimming event on the opening day of the CrossFit Games, raising questions about safety oversight as commercial fitness competitions grow.
Following the incident, CrossFit hired an independent investigative team, which interviewed spectators, athletes, and staff, reviewed complete video footage, and compared its procedures with water safety standards at other professional competitions.
Three months later, CrossFit announced six organizational changes, including the creation of a dedicated safety-management role and an independent safety committee.
CrossFit is also a profit-seeking commercial company. It likewise makes money from competition content, affiliate licensing, and participation fees. Its response illustrates a basic requirement: being a commercial business does not exempt a company from basic governance responsibilities.
The Beijing incident did not result in a reported injury or death, but the backlash has exposed weaknesses Hyrox needs to address.
Persuading hundreds of thousands of people to train for a demanding race is a commercial achievement. Sustaining it requires clear rules, trained officials, and the authority to stop competition when safety demands it.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by He Zhexin for 36Kr.
Note: EUR, RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of EUR 0.87 = USD 1 and RMB 6.70 = USD 1 based on estimates as of September 21, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are approximate and, where appropriate, rounded for ease of reference. They may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.