The second ever HYROX Australia event was held on 26th August 2023 at the Melbourne Showgrounds.
Melbourne is known as the sporting capital of Australia, and after the success of HYROX Sydney (the first ever HYROX event in Australia) this event was very popular. Over 3,400 racers and 1,000 spectators were registered, with an impressive 60 nationalities represented! The diversity of the sport was shown once again, with 49% male athletes and 51% female – the oldest at 72 years old, and the youngest just 16.
Melbourne 2023 Course Layout
Melbourne World Championships Qualifying Places
Sled Push
As periodically happens in HYROX, the sled push became one of the main talking points from the Melbourne event. It’s long been known that the sleds can feel and perform differently from one event to the next in HYROX, even though the same equipment and weights are used (presumably due to numerous factors including the wear of the sleds and carpet, and the humidity in the building). Well, in Melbourne we saw some of the fastest sleds we’ve seen in a long time, with the median time in the Men’s Open of 2:25m being faster than we saw in any venue throughout the whole of the 2022/23 season!
Women’s Pro
Another big story of the day was in the Women’s Pro division, which was won by Mareesa Robertson in an impressive time of 01:07:33 – breaking the 45-49 Age Group World Record. In part this was helped by a particularly impressive sled push time of 01:20 – the fastest sled push time ever seen in the Women’s Pro division!
Second was Talitha Scholtz in 01:08:03.
The podium was completed by Stephanie Wighton in a time of 01:11:47.
A livestream of the race can be viewed here.Â
Men’s Pro
The Men’s Pro was won by Chris Woolley in a time of 00:59:27. Chris had finished 3rd in Sydney just 2 weeks earlier, and this performance was over 3 minutes faster than he managed then. He’ll be pleased with this significant improvement. Even though it makes him one of very few men to break 60 minutes, it’s not quite fast enough to auto qualify him for the Elite 15 majors this season. After the race he said he plans to try to qualify for the HYROX World Championships Elite 15 lineup through the last chance qualifier in Hong Kong in 2024 (check out this article for more info on the Elite 15 race structure). Update – the last chance qualifier was eventually moved to Anaheim instead of Hong Kong. I believe, in the meantime, he also has his sights on the CrossFit Murph World Record.
Second was Thomas Rodgers in 01:01:17, followed by Ryan Constance in 01:02:28.
You can watch a livestream of the Men’s Pro race here.Â
Women’s Open
The Women’s Open was won by Amanda Berkley in 01:07:42.
Second place was taken by Danni Williams in 01:08:05, very closely followed by Ande McDonald in 01:08:24.
Men’s Open
A very close Men’s Open race was won by Dominic Sheppard in a time of 01:01:06, followed by Rauin Moriarty in 01:01:09.
Third place was taken by Lachie Gibson in 01:02:06.
Doubles
The Men’s Doubles was won by Jonathan Vuarnier and Tanguy Cruz in 00:51:14. At the time of writing, that’s the 5th fastest ever Mens Doubles time!
The Women’s Doubles was won by Bethany Carver and Kate Alpen in 01:04:02.
The Mixed Doubles was won by Meg Martin and William Martin in 00:58:44.
Here are some photos of the 2023 event:
