Elliot Giles competed in the 800m for Great Britain at the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games. And he is the one-mile road world record holder. At Hyrox Rome three weeks ago he partnered with Holly Archer to win the Mixed Doubles in 51:34. And on Friday he made his Pro Solos debut in Valencia, finishing in a time of 56:55 that doesn’t begin to tell the story. His running total was 25:32, his quickest 1k was 3:11.
He came into the wall balls just over a minute ahead of the field, so far ahead in fact that as I saw him from my own wall ball station I thought he must be an Open runner in the wrong place or that he’d missed a station. Like many runners when they first come into the sport however, he struggled to find depth on his wall balls and ultimately fell all the way down to eighth after taking just over six minutes.
The bad news for Elite Hyrox athletes? “I’m coming back for more,” Giles said on IG.
SMASH ‘N’ GRAB
What if you don’t have time to combine your Hyrox race with a city break? You do what Ronan Lindsay (doubles with Sean Noble) and Luke Greer (singles) did Saturday in Budapest.
Greer and Lindsay flew out in the morning, won their respective races, and were on their way back to the airport minutes after handing in their timing chip. In Ronan’s case he cited a 2K threshold run before hailing a taxi. Greer was looking for a confidence boost after questioning a series of near misses. He told me Saturday it was “a definite confidence boost especially with the back end, feel like I have a chance to win even if I’m not miles ahead which is reassuring.”
So props to Lindsay and Greer for their efficient, flying visits. But I pity any man who goes to Hungary and doesn’t get time to sample the local sheep brain and dumpling stew from my favourite Budapest restaurant, ‘Fatal.’
SPANISH MEN SWEEP THE TOP 4 IN VALENCIA
Roberto Gimeno, Pablo Santos, Pedro Antonio & Aitor Hormilla ran in a cluster along Valencia’s narrow running strip for much of the race. Ollie Russell mixed it with them for parts, Desmet and Reynolds were behind and Olympian Giles out in front. And they finished in a cluster with only 33 seconds separating the four of them
As ever at Spanish races, the wall balls ‘Thunderdome’ was absolutely rocking with support for the local athletes. Or it could have been for me, as I was doing wall balls at the same time as them, albeit in the Open category and having started 40 minutes earlier.
As Hyrox becomes increasingly global, vociferous local support will only grow as a feature, and it adds spice to the atmosphere. Winning at an ‘away’ event to silence the crowd is fun to witness (as Jude did at Malaga in April), but it was also fun to be in the middle of the roar as Gimeno came from behind to win on Saturday.
Also at Valencia, I spoke after the race with Alan Cao who finished just out of the points. He is still looking absolutely jacked from his ATHX endeavours, including a runners-up spot in Marseille a few weeks ago. He confirmed that he is now fully focused on Hyrox, but needs time for his body and training to adjust back into those specific demands.
Ollie Russell was the first finishing non-Spaniard, in fifth. He was there with his running coach Matt Whiting of Runners’ Retreat. Ollie has paid tribute to Matt’s coaching on IG recently, and did so again when I spoke with him after the race. The Hyrox training trend has recently skewed a lot more towards mixed modality, whereas Matt is a firm believer in keeping the running part more separate. Running faster, to get faster at running. Ollie’s performance in Valencia was another clear testimony of how that is working very well for him.
WHAT’S HAPPENED TO THE SLED LANES?
Is it possible that sled lane disparities are even worse than last year?
Back then, there were issues of isolated rouching of the turf, possibly due to athletes pushing the back of the sleds into the air and driving the front into the turf. And there is the problem of humidity: all athletes would be slower in (e.g.) Malaga. Non-air conditioned venues in spring through autumn are not only warmer but during the event just wetter, with all the sweat dripping onto the turf.
And this season we still have those kinds of discrepancies. I saw it while I was competing on Saturday. There were clearly weaker competitors with very poor form comfortably beating strong, technically superior athletes who were struggling to get any movement from their sled. (For the record, I am a weaker competitor with technically above average form.)
But this season there seems to be a new, um, wrinkle to the problem. Or an old problem surfacing more obviously…
At several events including Geneva, Gdansk and Valencia I have heard from multiple athletes citing lumps and ridges underneath the turf. Troublesome in some cases, catastrophic in others. Some had to accelerate on the sled push at each end of their lane to get the sled over the lumps, which left their quads essentially cooked for much of the rest of their race. Meanwhile, athletes in adjacent lanes with a record of significantly slower sled pushes were breezing past with obviously less effort.
My theory at Valencia is the electrical access hatches are installed in an even pattern all over the concrete floor. The way the sled lanes were orientated, it meant that every four or five lanes was subject to a row of divots. The front of the sled would drop very slightly onto the top of the hatch, and then 40cm later (with the sled still at that slightly down-pointing angle), it would hit the other side where the metal hatch sits just below the concrete floor.
Hyrox must address this as a matter of urgency. A potential Olympic sport must prioritise the highest possible degree of fairness and right now that isn’t happening. 10-25% of people at some venues may be out of contention 15 minutes into their race through no fault of their own. And if my theory about the electrical access hatches is correct, all it would take is a couple of cones before the event starts to block each lane with hatches underneath.
Another suggestion mooted to me is to have panels underneath the turf that can be clicked together and then glued to the turf above.
Credit goes to Hyrox for addressing to some degree the more general problem of quicker/slower lanes or sleds. The new feature of easy remove-replace covers to the bottom of the sleds has helped. They haven’t given a schedule for when all venues will have that, but the process was started last month.
PERFORMANCES OF THE WEEK
Ewan Applewhite & Isabelle Healiss won Valencia in 53:06 on Thursday. Then hopped on a plane to Budapest on Friday, rested up, and won on Saturday in 52:29, setting a new U24 World Record in the process. I asked Ewan how he compared the two courses: “I’d say Valencia was probably more free flowing with a smoother running course which I personally prefer. Budapest had a few more turns especially in the RoxZone. However Budapest definitely had a better managed fast lane and the course felt less busy. The expo in Budapest was also really spacious with plenty of room for vendors and everyone walking around.”
That very much echoes our experience of Valencia. The running track was narrower than I’ve seen elsewhere and Jude said he was ducking and weaving much of the time trying to get through people. I did get clattered from behind by a Pro athlete soon after his start, even though I was a long way across in the ‘normies’ area.
Meanwhile Charlie Searle stayed in the same city for her double: convincing wins in both the Pro Singles and Pro Women’s Doubles with long-time collaborator Lauren Stockley. She’s more famous for her Doubles, so I asked how she feels about the different formats. She said, “Doubles is a slightly more comfortable space for me at the moment, whereas in singles I’m still working on putting the whole race together consistently and getting the most out of myself across all the stations and runs. That’s something I’m keen to keep building on, and I’m excited to see what I can do as the season progresses.” As for her Pro Singles win, she was “really happy…although I wouldn’t say the race went exactly to plan. I felt more nervous than usual…and I think there’s still a lot I can take away from it and work on.”
Brazilian Bruno Henrique Silva Carvalho set a national record (58:41) as he took 105 points in Sao Paulo.
POINTS RANKINGS: MAJOR CLIMBERS
(Positions correct as of Sunday 19th October per prohyroxstats.com, subject to confirmation by Hyrox. Points changes are compared to two weeks ago, which was the most recent Hyrox update at time of writing.)
MEN:
Jake Dearden: a win last week in Geneva takes him from 27th to 16th and in prime roll-down spot for the London Elite15 (although he has two wins to defend in the next month).
Alen Ploj: his win in Gdansk last week has moved him 8 spots up to 20th, so he can book his flights to London for Elite15 in December.
Aitor Hormilla’s 4th place in Valencia was enough to push him from 36th into Challenger15 territory: 29th.
Roberto Gimeno’s long-overdue first win of the ‘Points Era’ pushes him 7 spots up into 36th, where he sits one ahead of…
…Jude Reynolds in 37th. His high-scoring 7th place (97.8) replaces his Barcelona score and sees him move up from 42nd.
WOMEN:
A huge 48-place rise for Sinead Bent who came into this weekend with only four qualifying scores. After her win in Budapest she sits 4th overall.
Chelsea Ribeiro (65th to 45th) and Kelsey Hochleitner (69th to 50th) both move into the top 50 for the first time.
PRO DOUBLES
Zara Piergianni & Gabriella Moriarty’s Budapest win, a minute clear of the Vandenlindenloof sisters, pushed them up to 10th place from 16th in the overall standings.
On the men’s side, a win takes Leiva & Gimeno to 305 points and a tie-breaking Strength of Field score, good enough for 21st (up from 32nd) and a provisional spot in the London Challenger15 lineup.
ICYMI
E15 athlete Calypso Sheridan has the side quest to end all side quests coming up: in December she runs a 515km Triathlon. Time will tell whether she starts that directly from the finish line at the London Elite Hyrox race.
The Hyrox Association of Macau is holding a fitness race in February. They have no affiliation with Hyrox and are currently refusing the cease-and-desist request from Hyrox corporate. Get your popcorn ready.
COMING UP:
Next week the Hyrox helicopters land in Tampa (USA) and Abu Dhabi (UAE), while hovering over the Mein Schiff Hyrox cruise in Mallorca, Marseilles and Barcelona.
This week’s Hybrid Fitness Report podcast will feature Pro Singles and Doubles(ish) race reviews of Gdansk and Valencia (Jude) and Open Singles Valencia (Paul).
WEEKEND RESULTS
VALENCIA
WOMEN’S PRO SINGLES
Charlie Searle (1:01:51)
Leonor Camilo (1:05:00)
Melania Timon Sierra (1:05:04)
WOMEN’S PRO DOUBLES
Charlie Searle & Lauren Stockley (54:52)
Nerea Izcue & Irene Olivan (55:30)
Laura Aryeetey & Imogen Amos (57:00)
MEN’S PRO SINGLES
Roberto Viciedo Gimeno (55:29)
Pablo Sánchez Santos (55:48)
Pedro Antonio Toral Leiva (55:50)
MEN’S PRO DOUBLES
Pedro Antonio Toral Leiva & Roberto Viciedo Gimeno (50:42)
Luis Garcia Rubio & Pablo Valverde Reyes (52:00)
Diogo Freitas & Tiago Lousa (52:08)
MIXED DOUBLES
Isabelle Healiss & Ewan Applewhite (53:06)
BUDAPEST
WOMEN’S PRO SINGLES
Sinead Bent (57:38)
Lena Putters (58:33)
Sophie Authried (1:07:30)
WOMENS PRO DOUBLES
Gabriella Moriarty & Zara Piergianni (56:27)
Margot & Charlotte Vandenlindenloof (57:34)
Kerstin Bertsch & Lisa Oed (57:39)
MEN’S PRO SINGLES
Luke Greer (54:12)
Jannik Czapla (54:46)
Alen Ploj (55:04)
MEN’S PRO DOUBLES
Sean Noble & Ronan Lindsay (49:410
Dylan Caruso & Eugenio Bianchi (50:06)
Oli Fricker & David Aryeetey (50:44)
MIXED DOUBLES
Isabelle Healiss & Ewan Applewhite (52:29)
SAO PAULO
WOMEN’S PRO SINGLES
Manuela Garcia Caparros (1:07:37)
Bruna Berbel (1:10:23)
Camila Siller (1:11:31)
WOMEN’S PRO DOUBLES
Meybel Eni De Alcantara Ferreira Rodr & Stefanie Kawasaki (1:04:35)
Mariana Soffientini & Julia Soffientini (1:05:40)
Aline Fiori & Suzana Bonini (1:06:51)
MEN’S PRO SINGLES
Bruno Henrique Silva Carvalho (58:41)
Aldo Lozano Márquez (59:45)
Joao Almeida (59:49)
MEN’S PRO DOUBLES
Agustin Davis & Felipe Troncoso (56:39)
Augusto Silva & Igor Santos (57:09)
Ralph Braga Duarte & Leonardo Correa (58:21)
MIXED DOUBLES
Byron Riveros & Sara Cifuentes (58:51)
Follow The Hybrid Fitness Report to stay up to date with the latest HYROX news.
CREDIT: all ranking information is courtesy of prohyroxstats.com and is correct at time of writing, but is not official Hyrox data.
Greer: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dd_-M6tCKRS/?img_index=1
Roberto: https://www.instagram.com/p/DejPTeGiwsa/
Pablo Santos Sanchez: https://www.instagram.com/p/DepuCbYDYXj/?img_index=5
Pedro: https://www.instagram.com/p/DenFguKDHZd/?hl=en&img_index=2
Aitor: https://www.instagram.com/p/DejwvryiBmt/?img_index=2
Bent: https://www.instagram.com/p/DeoLi0RiI5O/?img_index=1
Charlie Searle: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dejtvu-DlFl/?img_index=1
Elliot Giles: https://www.instagram.com/p/DehgQhjjn1U/?hl=en&img_index=1
