Australian football players have turned Hyrox champion Joanna Wietrzyk's infamous mid-race bowel accident into a Mad Monday costume, recreating the athlete's competition look after the incident attracted worldwide attention, side-eye, and possible nausea.
Photos circulating online show men dressed in black exercise gear and crop tops, complete with homemade Hyrox signs, black headbands, and strategically placed brown smears running down their legs. It is not exactly the pop culture moment anyone asked for, but the internet has rarely let good taste stand in the way of a costume.
Joanna Wietrzyk's Hyrox Race Gets the Mad Monday Treatment
One photo shows a man posing with a beer in hand and one finger raised, with a handwritten race sign clipped to his top. The image was captioned: 'SPRAYGUN ON MAD MONDAY'.
Another takes the commitment to the costume into bathroom territory, showing a smiling man standing beside a wet floor sign with brown marks covering portions of his legs. The identities of the players and their respective football clubs have not been established.
Mad Monday, the traditional end-of-season celebration for Australian football teams, is already known for players arriving in costumes that can range from clever to deliberately ridiculous. This particular interpretation certainly understood the second half of the assignment. According to some people online, the look may not be retiring after one Monday.
Could Hyrox Become an Unlikely Halloween Costume?
Social media users quickly began predicting that Wietrzyk-inspired outfits could reappear for Halloween.
'Someone had to do it,' one commenter wrote.
Another put an Australian spin on the prediction: '$5 says there'll be more spray bums than rayguns this Halloween.'
'That's gold u win the Aussie internet for today,' another person added, while someone else admitted: 'Knew this would be coming, and absolutely here for it.'
If the predictions prove correct, black activewear might experience a record-breaking sales uptick this Halloween.
What Happened to Joanna Wietrzyk During Hyrox Beijing?
Wietrzyk suffered a bowel accident while competing at a Hyrox event in Beijing but continued through the race, including exercise stations involving shared equipment.
The Melbourne athlete ultimately crossed the finish line in one hour, one minute and 23 seconds and was initially declared the winner. Footage showing faeces on her legs while she continued competing subsequently spread online, prompting criticism over both her decision to continue and officials' failure to intervene.
Wietrzyk later apologised and voluntarily surrendered the points earned from the race.
'I recognise that I should have made a different choice,' she wrote on Instagram. 'I take responsibility for my decision to continue and am deeply sorry for the discomfort and disruption it caused.'
She also said she would step away to recover and reflect following the intense public attention surrounding the incident.
Hyrox Changes Its Rules Following the Incident
Hyrox co-founder Moritz Fürste subsequently acknowledged that officials should have intervened.
'Hyrox made a mistake by not reacting immediately to the incident,' he said.
The competition's updated rules now allow officials to withdraw an athlete on medical grounds when bodily fluids, including blood, vomit, urine, or faeces, create a welfare or contamination risk for the athlete or other competitors.
The athlete may understandably be ready to put Beijing behind her, but this may be easier said than done when numerous people have been affected by the ordeal. Actively deciding to contaminate the Hyrox course doesn't disappear when an apology appears, and the internet has made it clear that it has moved on from the disgust over the lack of basic hygiene to the Halloween costume phase.
