Here is everything you need to know about all the HYROX action from last weekend.
INJURIES: THE KEY TO SUCCESS?
The last time I saw Sean Noble in the flesh he was hobbling around in front of the podium at the World Championships during the U24 Men’s Doubles ceremony. Fellow-Irishman Conor Maguire and his English doubles partner Ewan Applewhite had just received their awards and it went to the national anthems, with Noble geared up to belt out “Amhrán na bhFiann”…only for them to start with “God save the King” for Britain. Noble could not have looked more disgusted and the six athletes on the podium all struggled to keep relatively straight faces. Sean was good value in the spectator zone that day.
From that point, Noble was unable to run for about ten straight weeks and after a month back his “volume is really, really low,” so this win was ‘unexpected,’ he told me. “In saying that, I’ve improved my sled pull, burpees, rowing and lunges while I was injured so I knew if I pulled some of my runs I could throw down some good station splits.
The missus has me dialled in with my nutrition so that definitely helped as well…the win gave me confidence going into Hamburg as I can take a good bit of time off my running with more running volume.”
Meanwhile on the other side of the pond, Canadian Frédéric Dubé kicked off his season with a statement win in Washington DC last month. Little did most of us know at the time, but “I left DC barely walking… The last month for me has been a struggle! I had a knee injury and wasn’t able to do any squats or lunges for one month.” When Ryan Douglas got to the wall balls nine seconds ahead of him, Dubé “was scared…but I won’t stop until it’s over!”
Looking ahead to the rest of the season he said, “I am pretty happy about being 17th [in the points rankings] now, my goal is to jump in that top 15 during the season! And I will do it.”
We have all seen those Instagram posts that start with, ‘I was hoping for a good result today but my knee/back/hamstring/stomach/travel/diabetic parrot meant it was not to be.’ If Instagram provided an eye-roll button rather than just like and repost, we’d all be tapping it. To be fair of course, many of those people are trying to maintain an impression, image or status that directly affects their ability to attract or retain sponsors, so we don’t want to go in too hard. But on the other hand the situations faced by Noble and Dubé demonstrate that it may in fact be a very rare privilege to turn up to an event with zero niggles, personal best HRV readings and flawless nutrition.
But you can rest assured, if my season debut falls apart in two weeks I will DEFINITELY be blaming my back.
RUNNING AWAY WITH THE WOMEN’S SINGLES
Madelyn Eybergen and Saskia Millard are runners. And they’ve both stepped into Hyrox. Saskia seemingly with long-term intent, while Madelyn continues to prioritise her bid to make the Canadian track team at the 2028 Olympics. Both are starting to make many of their rivals look a little slow with their easy-striding, low-HR runs creating insurmountable gaps early in races.
Eybergen won in Toronto, taking the notable scalps of top-ranked athletes Vivian Tafuto and Rachael Wade. Tafuto was in it to the end, but succumbed by 25 seconds.
Looking back at it, Eybergen told me “That race felt significantly easier than SLC. I think because altitude didn’t play a factor and I took the first couple runs slower. I’m happy with how it went and the points I got.”
Millard wasn’t planning to race Karlsruhe at all, and was safe in the Elite15 field with 520 and a good Strength of Field score. But then she heard that 22nd-ranked Stefanie Oswald would be racing, along with Meg Jacoby who won two races in September in her comeback from injury. “I need to practice actually racing before Hamburg and wanted to see if I could beat them running more of my own race, but unfortunately [they didn’t race]…Still a good run out, and pleased with the result…” And she SHOULD be pleased – that win puts her on 525 points, most likely good for 7th position in the world and with no points to defend until March next year. So she’s as good as qualified for the next three Elite races. “I’m definitely in for solos and doubles!!” she said. “I can’t believe it!!”
Like Eybergen, who spoke in our podcast recently about winning AG Worlds with her heart rate never above Zone 3, Millard wasn’t going all out in Karlsruhe. “I probably raced at about 90% as the main focus was on qualifying for Elite15 in our doubles.”
PERFORMANCES OF THE WEEKEND
Charlie Botterill in Bordeaux, Saskia Millard in Karlsruhe and Frédéric Dubé in Canada all won their respective singles AND doubles races. All three pairings will be in the Elite15 in Hamburg.
Frenchwoman Elodie Rivera is coming. The 31 year old was in the 2016 Olympics double sculls and won bronze in the 2020 European Championships. She did 1:07:16 in her debut Hyrox in Nice this year, took 5 minutes off that in Worlds to take Runner-Up in her age group, and just won Bordeaux in 58:49. That’s 8.5 minutes improvement in 7 months and across 3 races.
2019 Pro Men’s World Champion Lukas Storath just keeps on winning. He’s in his mid-40’s now and just took the overall Mixed Doubles victory with Angela Lanz, in his 52nd Hyrox race.
Willy Georges, as stated in a BOXROX post from a few days ago, is a ridiculous athlete. A potential one-of-one. He won Mixed Doubles in Bordeaux with Apolline Cardon in 53:28 – a minute ahead of the field. A week earlier he set a marathon PB of 2:54:03. He has a Hyrox Pro Solo time of 56:29. He is also a 5-time French CrossFit champion and has powerlifting PBs of 275kg squat, 320kg deadlift and 180kg bench. And footage of him doing the sled push in Bordeaux was…well let’s just say if he was my partner I would need to jog behind him on the sled to keep up.
TASTY NEW DOUBLES CLASHES IN HAMBURG
The Wenisch-Czapla team took a year off after winning 2025 Worlds, with Wenisch teaming up with Roncevic to form the German language dream team last season. Back with Czapla, the two Germans picked up where they left off, executing a dominant win in Karlsruhe.
But it was in Bordeaux and Toronto that we saw two new pairings that many people are looking forward to seeing battle it out in Hamburg in a few weeks. In Toronto, Cole Learn was complaining on Friday that not enough Elite doubles teams were on the starting list. He was sure of the win and wanted stronger opponents so that he and Dubé would get a good ‘Strength of Field’ score to go with their 105 points. But they had to settle for the 105 points and a 48:41 time that has them among the favourites. After the win, Cole screamed :”The Canadians are coming!” while Dubé walked nonchalantly behind him. Maybe that combination of ‘piss & vinegar’ and a more phlegmatic demeanour will be a winning one.
But to do so they will have to get past – among others – the newish pairing of Charlie Botterill & Jake Dearden, who both posted singles PBs the day before when Charlie took the win in Bordeaux. Their winning doubles time on Saturday was just eight seconds slower than Learn/Dubé – i.e. essentially identical.
Meanwhile the women’s Elite15 was only just saved from the slightly absurd position of having one pair with three wins NOT make it. Gabriella Moriarty & Zara Piergianni started their race in Bordeaux knowing they’d need a win to keep them at the top table. But they were beaten into second place by the French duo Ambre Keram & Anne Bonnin, and thus drop down into Challenger15 as points from last year roll off.
Replacing them in the Elite15 are Holly Archer & Saskia Millard, who took a massive two and a half minute win in Karlsruhe and join seven other pairs on 315 points. All of which ensures that the stakes will be very high in Hamburg. Not just for the first three spots that grant World Championship Elite15 qualification. The 106 points for fourth place, rather than 105 for winning a normal event, could prove crucial in future Elite15 qualification.
TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM
As reported last week, Fabi Eisenlauer pulled out of the singles while in the leading group heading into wall balls, due to a worsening knee injury, to ensure he could compete with doubles partner Paul Weindl the following day. As I was updating my points spreadsheet this weekend, which tracks the rising and falling of athletes’ placings, I saw that Eisenlauer dropped 39 places: from 22nd and in the Challenger15 to 62nd. That was because Rome was his last chance to secure a fifth points score as 105 points rolled off from a year ago.
So not only was he sacrificing his place in that race, but he was giving up a spot in the Challenger15 in Hamburg. And he confirmed to me this weekend, he knew that at the time. “I guess the season is long enough [to get back in Challenger15], Gonna do another singles at some point, then we will see.”
Next weekend the Hyrox trains roll into Boston (USA), Geneva (Switzerland) and Gdansk (Poland).
In the meantime this week’s Hybrid Fitness Report podcast, out Wednesday, includes our interview with Australian Hyrox legend Jon Wynn.
See below for last week’s interview with Madelyn Eybergen:
RESULTS
TORONTO, CANADA
Women’s Singles
Madelyn Eybergen (58:32)
Vivian Tafuto (58:57)
Rachael Wade (59:34)
Women’s Doubles
Rachael Wade & Erika Tvedten (58:23)
Quinlan Hickey & Lindsay Bessegato (58:38)
Christina Matthews & Charlotte O’Neill (59:06)
Men’s Singles
Frédéric Dubé (55:22)
Ryan Douglas (55:47)
Ryan Callahan (57:22)
Men’s Doubles
Cole Learn & Frédéric Dubé (48:41)
Stirling Peters & Chase Stevenson (52:12)
Isaac Sanderson & Brendan Neely (54:21)
Mixed Doubles
Quinlan Hickey & Kenneth Stapon (55:24)
KARLSRUHE, GERMANY
Women’s Singles
Saskia Millard (58:25)
Jennifer Nikolaus (1:00:47)
Linda Meier (1:02:44)
Women’s Doubles
Saskia Millard & Holly Archer (54:38)
Jennifer Nikolaus & Rebecca Frank (57:08)
Céline von Potobsky & Melanie Maurer (57:08)
Men’s Singles
Sean Noble (54:53)
Luke Greer (55:02)
Sebastian Ifversen (55:32)
Men’s Doubles
Tim Wenisch & Jannik Czapla (50:28)
Conor Maguire & Kieron White (51:28)
Lukas Zajons & Jan-Niklas Friedrich (52:31)
Mixed Doubles
Angela Lanz & Lukas Storath (56:04)
BORDEAUX, FRANCE
Women’s Singles
Elodie Ravera (58:49)
Calypso Sheridan (59:20)
Lea Sophie Pommerening (1:01:17)
Women’s Doubles
Ambre Keram & Anne Bonnin (55:51)
Zara Piergianni & Gabriella Moriarty (56:22)
Viola Oberländer & Jana Lebenstedt (56:42)
Men’s Singles
Charlie Botterill (54:01)
Alex Roncevic (54:12)
Jake Dearden (54:20)
Men’s Doubles
Charlie Botterill & Jake Dearden (48:49)
Théo Kis & Alex Valentin (50:06)
Ben Sutherland & Harry Sutherland (50:54)
Mixed Doubles
Apolline Cardon & Willy Georges (53:28)
