McIntyre, Weeks Win HYROX World Championships of Fitness

Image – Hunter McIntrye

On Dec. 12, ten world-class athletes gathered in Hamburg, Germany to compete in the 2020 HYROX World Championships of Fitness. The results of that competition were unknown until New Years Day when HYROX streamed the event across their social media platforms. The United States were represented atop the podium in the end as Hunter McIntyre and Lauren Weeks won their divisions.

The Workout: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic HYROX had to cancel their 2020 World Championships, in its place they created the Elite 12 where they invited the top five HYROX athletes in each division through previous competitions and online qualifiers, filling the two remaining spots with wild card selections in CrossFit athletes Adam Klink and 2013 CrossFit Games champion Samantha Briggs.

• The crux of the event was for athletes to complete an 8K run on an air runner but after the completion of each 1K they must stop and complete a prescribed workout.
• The prescribed workouts include a 1K ski erg, 50-meter sled push, 50-meter sled pull, 80-meter burpee broad jumps, a 1K row, 200-meter farmers carry, 100-meter weighted lunges and 75 wall balls.

Women’s Results: Weeks, a three-time CrossFit Regional athlete, added the Hyrox title to her long resume of functional fitness competition achievements.

• Weeks, fresh off her third place finish at the Spartan Games, won with a time of 1:09.47 ahead of German HYROX athlete Viola Oberlander (1:10.46).
• HYROX women’s world record holder and triathlete Sarah Kohlti placed third with a time of 1:11.32.
• Briggs just missed out on a podium finish by less than three tenths of a second finishing in 1:11.56.
• Imke Salander and Linda Meier had to withdraw from the competition due to injuries.

Men’s results: McIntyre made good on his promise to dominate the Germans on their home turf. In true McIntyre fashion, he even started a rivalry with fellow American Klink.

• McIntyre with his victory in 1:00.04 added another world championship to his six Obstacle Course Race world championships.
• McIntyre was dominant as he paced himself on the 1K runs with the other competitors but pulled away on the workouts, leading to his over two minute margin of victory.
• Germans Lukas Storath (1:02.37) and Tobias Lautwein (1:03.22) rounded out the podium finishers. 
• Klink finished fifth with a time of 1:10.19 in his first HYROX competition.