HYROX Frankfurt on Saturday (23/4/22) saw some incredible performances, including a new potentially controversial World Record (more on that below).
Frankfurt – often termed “Bankfurt” or “Mainhatten” – is known for the skyline of its impressive business district (the city has more than 40 skyscrapers) and is home to 14 of the 15 tallest buildings in Germany. It also has the second largest airport in Europe. The HYROX event took place at “Messe Frankfurt”.
Individual Pro
The Men’s Pro division was won by Tim Wenisch (59:10m), with Tom Hogan (1.00.04) coming in second, and Steffen Blecken third (1:01:17). Tom’s time sees him move into the top 15 times of the year and thus into the Elite Wave for the World Championship in Las Vegas.
Anna Blank won the Women’s Pro division in a time of 1:09:52, with Beatrice Ardelt (1:10:28) in second and Carina Bungard in third (1:11:16).
Check out this Insta post for some great footage of the Pro men…
Individual Open
Dieter Schwarzkopf won the Open Men’s category in 58:43, and Jezabel Kremer won the Women’s Open in 1:05:25.
Doubles
The Men’s Doubles event was won by Dimitri Ulajew and Dieter Schwarzkopf in 53:40, and Women’s Doubles by Janne Thomson and Raphaela Steffek in 58:57.
The Mixed Doubles event saw a new world record set by Lukas Storath and Sabrina Mockenhaupt 55:22 (more on that below).
Relay
The Mixed Relay event was won in a time of 01:01:36 by Kiki Schweizer, Kerstin Hartmann, Tom Mrugala and Tom Gartner.
World Record Controversy
The breaking of the Mixed Doubles world record has led to some discussions around whether the format of the Mixed Doubles event is appropriate. In the Mixed Doubles, the Men’s open weights are used. As it stands, in theory, an elite pro athlete could do most of the work on the functional stations, and that person’s partner could just primarily tag along for the running portions. Of course, in most cases that wouldn’t be as effective as sharing the work but can potentially lead to what is not much of a joint effort. By all accounts this is what happened with Lukas and Sabrina at the weekend, with Lukas doing most (not all) of the functional work, and Sabrina primarily there for the running (disclaimer – I wasn’t there to witness this, I’m just going by reports).
I write this in no way wishing to take away from the achievements of Lukas and Sabrina – their time was incredibly impressive and their approach completely within the rules – but some HYROX athletes are questioning whether it is appropriate. Shouldn’t a hybrid doubles event be more about the hybrid capabilities of both partners?
The world record time of 55:22m is a time which some male Pro level athletes could beat on their own. Hunter McIntyre, for example, has set the world record in the individual Pro category of 13 seconds faster than the Mixed Doubles world record time, despite using the Pro weights.
Of course, there’s no easy solution but it’s something for HYROX to be thinking about. What springs to mind as a possible solution is to adapt the Mixed Doubles to be more like the relay, where each member of the pairing has to complete 4 “legs” each, thereby splitting the workload more evenly. That may not be something HYROX will want to do though as it could potentially add to logistical problems at the event.
It will be interesting to see if HYROX make any changes going forward, or if we should just accept the event as it is and appreciate that most people are there for the enjoyment, personal achievement, and not to try and set world records.
Here’s a few more pictures of the Frankfurt event…
The next HYROX event to be held in Frankfurt will be on 10th December 2022.
