2025 HYROX World Championships Recap

The 2025 HYROX world championships concluded this past week on Navy Pier in Chicago and Concept2 was thrilled to join as a global partner. The world’s fittest athletes converged with one singular goal in mind – to be crowned world champion in their respective events. With bragging rights and prize money on the line, the four days of competition were certainly not short on amazing athletic feats, excitement, and of course a bit of drama. 

Day one kicked off with the opening ceremonies followed by the Elite 15 Championship races for both men and women. Each country had athletes march out grouped together with matching shirts and waving country flags. It was amazing to see so many athletes from all over the world coming to compete.  

The Elite 15 women kicked things off with a blistering run pace and a highly dynamic field, constantly changing places throughout the competition. With reigning 2024 HYROX champion Meg Jacoby withdrawing from the competition, it was anyone's race. Things started to heat up at the burpee broad jump station where Joanna Wietrzyk came in leading, with Lauren Weeks and Linda Meier coming in together over 30 seconds behind. By the end of the station Meier had a 10 second lead on Wietrzyk and Weeks. Meier never looked back from there and stormed to the finish line, winning in a time of 58:56. In her rookie season Joanna Wietrzyk finished in 2nd with a time of 59:17, followed by veteran Lauren Weeks in a time of 59:43. Rounding out the top five were also newcomers Sinead Bent in 4th and Lucy Proctor in 5th. 

The Elite 15 men then took the floor, and it was clear it was going to be a dog fight for the win. It was clear that the battle for first place was going to be between German Tim Wenisch and American Hunter McIntyre after several stations. McIntyre was leading by a few seconds, exiting the burpee broad jumps halfway in but then trailing Wenisch a few seconds after the next run and RowErg station. Wenisch slowly continued to put the hammer down and entered the final station, wall balls, with a 40 second lead. That is when things got interesting though. Wenisch was struggling to finish all 100 wall balls and McIntyre was coming in hot from behind and gaining ground quickly. In an exciting finish, Wenisch was able to finish five seconds before McIntyre, in a time of 53:53, crowned the 2025 HYROX world champion. Fellow American, Dylan Scott finished in 3rd, in a time of 54:58. An Aussie trio of James Kelly, Jonathon Wynn, and Tom Rodgers rounded out the top six, all finishing within 25 seconds of each other.
 

The next day of competition brought racing in the Pro men and women age group divisions as well as the HYROX mixed relay invitational race. Each relay team was compromised of two men and two women from the same country. Each member would have a run station and movement before tapping their teammate to take over. Each member would do this twice. This race is unique as there is country pride on the line, but it also allows the athletes to go even faster than they would normally compete with the ability to rest before they had to compete again. Things got heated when American Hunter McIntyre was impeded by Irishman Jeremy McConnell. McIntyre then retaliated with an unsportsmanlike shove to the Irish competitor, resulting in McConnell almost falling, and a disqualification of the USA relay team despite finishing first. With the USA disqualification, this then left Australia taking the crown in first in a time of 50:11. Four seconds later team England and Belgium crossed the line at the same time, too close to see who would claim 2nd, it was decided they would share 2nd and 3rd place prize money. 

The third day of racing brought more age group Pro competition as well as mixed doubles and Elite 15 women and men double races. Competitors in the Pro division began to notice extreme difficulties in some lanes of the sled push, coincidentally aligning with a new sled surface that was also tested in the weeks leading up to world champs at the NYC HYROX event. HYROX released a statement declaring that the sleds were to blame and not the sled surface, taking full accountability for the discrepancy and apologizing profusely. Huge upsets occurred in the mixed doubles relay, where Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr and partner James Newburry finished a disappointing 5th, after coming in as favorites to win at their first HYROX world championships together. Toomey would eventually withdraw from the Elite 15 women’s doubles with partner Joanna Wietrzyk as well, whom she set the world record with earlier in the season. This opened the door for other teams to have an opportunity to fight for the top spot and prize money. In the women’s race, the English duo of Sinead Bent and Lucy Proctor stormed away from the field but accrued two penalties during their race. This allowed the USA team of Lauren Weeks and Lauren Griffith to slide into first place narrowly, thanks to Lauren Weeks' unbroken wall balls and closing the gap. In the Elite 15 men’s doubles, the German duo of Tim Wenisch and Jannik Czapla won in a tight margin, surpassing the Spanish team of Roberto Viciedo Gimeno and Luis Garcia Rubio by less than 6 seconds. 

On the final day of competition, we saw age group Pro women and men doubles as well as all adaptive categories closing the weekend off strong. Amazing performances were witnessed with Paralympic champion, Lauren Steadman, storming to a 1st place in 1:07:49 in the upper limb impairment category, as well as David Wetherill, also a Paralympic athlete with lower leg impairment, showed us just what true determination and grit was. 

Throughout the weekend Concept2 was excited to be representing at the HYROX world championships as a newly renewed global partner of HYROX. We had a booth showcasing not one, but two StrengthErgs all weekend long, as well as our RowErg and SkiErg. We challenged the fittest athletes in the world to throw down their fastest 150m on the SkiErg – with the winner taking home a Concept2 swag bag. The stoke was high for the SkiErg competition, along with the opportunity to test the StrengthErg- many athletes, both international and domestic, had yet to experience it. On the competition floor, we offered specialized adaptive RowErg monorails along with our wide floor stands for the SkiErg designed for adaptive athletes. We also offered ErgRace services all weekend long for the Elite 15 races with our veteran team of experts. Although this HYROX season is coming to a close, there is so much more to be excited for in the season to come – it was announced that the 2026 HYROX World Championships would be held in Stockholm, Sweden.