The HYROX Elite 15 represents the sharpest end of the sport. These are the athletes who have separated themselves through a full season of Majors and Regional Championships, in a rapidly growing, global sport, to be able to proudly call themselves one of the top 15 athletes in the world.
The 2026 lineup in Stockholm looks like the deepest field HYROX has ever produced. Established champions return, new names have broken through, and the data suggests the sport has taken another clear step forward.
Using athlete survey responses, race results, Rox Lyfe podcast interviews and my own observations from commentating on the Elite races, I wanted to answer one question: what does a world-class HYROX athlete actually look like in 2026? I’ve shared some of the main findings below…
The Athletes
The Elite 15 athletes qualifying for the 2026 World Championships are shown below…
HYROX Elite 15 Personal Bests
In the women’s field, the average solo Pro division personal best time of the Elite 15 lining up in Stockholm is 58:01m (2:18m faster than last season’s lineup), and the Men’s Elite 15 have an average personal best of 53:30m (1:47m faster than last season).
You can only read so much into personal bests, and finishing times, as anyone who follows the sport closely will appreciate that all courses are different – some faster than others due to various factors (course layout, temperature, etc). In fact, 16 of the 30 PBs were set in Warsaw in April 2026.
What’s more, the Elite qualifying system will be moving away from time-based qualifying from the 2026/7 season.
But that all said, these improvements in times at the very top of the sport are significant and reflect an undoubted jump in performance in athletes over the past 12 months.
Geography
16 of the 30 Elite 15 athletes are from Europe, 8 from America, and 6 from the APAC region. This is a very similar split to last season (15 / 9 / 6). The spread highlights how global the sport has become, with meaningful representation now across Europe, North America and APAC.
By country, the breakdown is as follows:
USA – 7
Australia – 4
Germany – 4
UK – 4
Belgium – 2
Netherlands – 2
New Zealand – 2
Austria – 1
Canada – 1
Czech Republic – 1
Denmark – 1
Ireland – 1
Age
The median age of the athletes is 29 years old on the women’s side, and 32 on the men’s. Two seasons ago the median age was 31.5 and 35 respectively, and last season it was 30 and 32.
The youngest female athlete is once again Emilie Dahmen (21 years old), and the oldest is Lauren Weeks (36). The youngest male is Charlie Botterill (24) and the oldest is Tomas Tvrdik (40).
Height
Median height of the athletes is 175cm (5’7) on women’s side, and 185cm (6’1) on the men’s.
The shortest females are Lucy Procter and Lauren Weeks (160cm / 5’3), and the tallest is Emilie Dahmen at 183cm / 6’0.
The range in heights in the men’s field is far less great with the shortest male (James Kelly) at 181cm / 5’11, and the tallest (Hidde Weersma) standing at 192cm / 6’3.
Weight
Median weight of the female athletes is 63kg / 142lbs (3lbs heavier than last season), while the men average 82kg / 180lbs – the same as last season.
There is, however, a wide spread of bodyweights across the field, with 35lbs separating the heaviest and lightest females, and 40lbs separating the men.
The consistency in average bodyweight over the past few years in the Elite 15, combined with the large variation between athletes, suggests that bodyweight may be less important in HYROX than many people assume – certainly when compared to pure running, where being lighter is often considered an advantage. HYROX appears to allow for far greater body type diversity than most endurance sports.
Sporting Background
The sporting backgrounds of the Elites are extremely varied and include running, triathlon, swimming, CrossFit, strength training, OCR, soccer, tennis, netball, field hockey, handball, Australian rules football, American football, and mountain biking – to name just a few.
Of course, it’s possible in a few years’ time we will see that the background of a HYROX elite athlete is…HYROX…especially with the introduction of the YoungStars competition this season, but for now, it is diverse.
Job / Occupation
Few areas of HYROX (and this article) have changed more rapidly than Elite athlete professionalisation. This is perhaps not surprising as the sport has grown (and along with-it prize money and sponsorship opportunities).
Of the 30 Elite 15 athletes lining up in Stockholm, less than 25% of them have a full-time job that is not within the fitness industry. The vast majority are now full-time athletes, and / or athletes who supplement their income with coaching or gym ownership.
Those who have jobs (full or part time) outside of the fitness industry include Morgan Schulz, Vivian Tafuto, Linda Meier, Seka Arning, Stefanie Oswald, Lena Putters, Emilie Dahmen and Alyssa McElheny.
On the Men’s side, Louis Osselauer works as a “Boarding School Educator” as well as being an online coach, and Tomas Tvrdik is in the Czech military but has been able to take a sabbatical for much of the first half of 2026. Most of the remaining men are full time athletes, or online coaches, gym owners, etc.
Of course, there is still plenty of ‘work’ involved in roles in the fitness industry, and even a “full time athlete” has photo shoots, social media requirements, duties for sponsors, media work, etc. But the prevalence of a 9-5 office job is much lower in the Elite 15 than it was in previous years. In fact, in a recent podcast interview, Sean Noble told me “I don’t think I could be in the Elite 15 if I was working full time as a solicitor again”, and Luke Greer actually quit his job after the 2025 HYROX World Championships to focus completely on the sport.
Running Times
The athletes were asked for their running times over certain distances – not their personal bests, but where they estimate they are right now. Some were unable to answer at all for some distances, and most had to make an estimation as it’s not something they regularly test in training. The averages were as follows…
5km – 17:24 (women), 15:40 (men)
10km – 36:39 (women), 32:42 (men)
Half Marathon – 01:22:52 (women), 01:12:54 (men)
Marathon – 02:55:35 (women), 02:37:28 (men)
One of the quickest runners on the women’s side looks to be Alyssa McElheny who has run a 2:34:27 marathon (which qualified her for the US Olympic Trials) and a 10km time of 33:58. She spoke about this and much more in our Rox Lyfe podcast interview with her here.
On the Men’s side, Luke Greer is the fastest and we’ve seen glimpses of that running pace in the Elite 15 races since he made his debut in Phoenix in Jan 2026. He has a 5km time of around 14:30, and 10km of 30:20. You can read more about Greer in this article.
For full disclosure at this point, there was just one female athlete, very much towards the top of the field, who I was unable to get a response from at all. I was able to use some publicly available data for her run times, but not for all distances. Therefore, if anything, I suspect the averages for the women are slightly faster than shown above.
SkiErg and Row
The average 2km times for the athletes on the Concept2 Ski Erg and Row machines looked like this (again often an estimation was needed)…
Ski – 07:49 (women), 06:45 (men)
Row – 07:36 (women), 06:29 (men)
These are all slight improvements versus last season.
Hunter McIntyre (06:20 ski, 06:10 row) was one of the faster athletes on the men’s side, and Vivian Tafuto (07:30 ski, 07:07 row) was one of the faster women.
20 Minute FTP Bike
A new addition to this year’s article is gathering the FTP test results of the athletes. If you aren’t aware, an FTP test is used in cycling to estimate your “Functional Threshold Power” – the highest average power you can sustain for about an hour without fading badly.
A full 60-minute FTP test can be difficult to pace and execute well, which is why the 20-minute version is more commonly used (though neither of them are much fun!).
This isn’t something that all of the athlete’s had done by any means but the average wattage of those who had showed 242w for the women, and 358w for the men. The best woman was Vivian Tafuto (291w) and the best man was former cyclist Charlie Botterill (411w).
Give it a go and see how you compare!
Strength
Approximate median 3 rep max (3RM) deadlift, squat, military press and bench press were as follows:
3RM squat – 89kg / 195lbs (women), 134kg / 295lbs (men)
3RM deadlift – 118kg / 260lbs (women), 170kg / 375lbs (men)
3RM military press – 45kg / 100lbs (women), 67kg / 148lbs (men)
3RM bench press – 61kg / 135lbs (women), 103kg / 228lbs (men)
Again, these numbers are based on those who were able to answer or estimate (not everybody was).
The strongest woman (in general) appears to be former bodybuilder Gabrielle Nikora-Baker (264lbs squat, 330lbs deadlift, 88lbs military press, 143lbs bench). On the men’s side it was Hunter McIntyre (525lbs deadlift, 370lbs squat, 205lbs military press, 295lbs bench).
Strength Endurance
As an observation from doing this survey for a few years now, the focus on pure strength (discussed above) is certainly much less than it used to be and the primary improvements in the Elite 15 tracked metrics are coming in the running.
There is much less focus on 3 rep max, for example, from the athletes, than there perhaps used to be. That clearly hasn’t adversely affected station times though at the Elite level where we see continued improvements across the board, including on the sleds (I appreciate that’s partly due to carpet and sled changes).
In our Rox Lyfe podcast interview with him, Dylan Scott – who doesn’t have the highest pure strength numbers in the Elite 15 but does have some of the fastest HYROX times ever, told us “You don’t have to be that strong to push and pull the sleds. There’s this strength endurance side of things which my body plays really, really well to.”
Strength endurance is a harder number to gather in a survey, but it is an important factor in HYROX, and I’m sure it is something that has improved in the athletes over the past few years. I did previously ask athletes for their “Karen” CrossFit workout time – which is 150 wall balls. However, many didn’t know their time, and those who did can consistently do this workout unbroken, if fresh, so it didn’t feel like it was revealing a lot of useful information.
Chris Bayens (coach to, amongst others, Cole Learn) touched on this topic in our interview with him “People have fundamentally understood that it’s an endurance race. You don’t need to be that strong for HYROX. What you need to be able to do is produce submaximal force for an extended period of time.”
Training Volume
So how much do these athletes train to get to this level? Well, it varies quite a lot, but the average is around 15 hours a week for the women (3 hours less than last season), and 19 hours for the men (1 hour more than last season). Linda Meier, the 2025 HYROX World Champion, told us she trains for just 8.5 hours per week.
I will add here a personal (perhaps obvious) observation. The majority of these athletes have been very active, putting in a lot of hours training (or exercising or playing) every week, not just for a few weeks, or months, but for years and years. I see many people who feel they can come into HYROX, and replicate the training volume of the Elites, and expect to be at that level of performance very quickly. But that’s often not the case if they don’t have several years of consistent physical activity behind them. Years of volume as a background is more important than the volume you currently do in a single week!
Running Volume
There’s no doubt that you need to be a good runner to be good at HYROX. The amount of running Elite athletes do each week varies a great deal but if anything, it has reduced on average versus previous seasons. For the Elite 15 lineups in Stockholm the average mileage per week is around 40-45 miles (64-72km).
Of course, we should acknowledge that these numbers are rough, and running volume can changed significantly from week to week and will be dependent (amongst other things) on where an athlete is in their season.
My personal feeling is that many athletes are realising they don’t need super high mileage for HYROX and are replacing some of their previous running volume with off feet conditioning. This is something I spoke about with Morgan Schulz on the Rox Lyfe podcast. Morgan (who recently ran a 17:00m 5km in training), has battled injuries for much of her running career, and now runs around 30 miles (48km) a week. You can read more on our chat with Morgan here.
Doing it When it Matters
There is much more to HYROX than being strong and good at running. Of course, those are important but other factors play a role too. The Elite 15 aren’t simply those with the best run, erg, and strength numbers!
In particular, you have to be able to perform when it matters. If you can put out good numbers in training, but can’t transfer it to race day, then you won’t be able to compete at the top of sport. The Elite 15 athletes at the 2026 World Champs have performed on race day multiple times. At a minimum they needed 2 Pro times to qualify them for a Major or Regional race, and then had to perform at that Major or Regional – against the best athletes in the world – to book a place in the world champs.
Rebecca Mason (who finished 6th in the Elite 15 at the 2023 World Championships) touched on this in the past with this comment:
“I feel it’s great to have really good numbers in the above but I have watched so many really good athletes who are far better than me in training & on paper, not be able to pull it all together on race day. The mental ability along with the ability to stick to a game plan suitable for you – not get caught up in race adrenaline/hype is so so important.”
There are many factors that influence whether an athlete can actually deliver on race day – factors that I’ve not necessarily been able capture from a survey or collate data on. I’ve touched on some below…
Compromised Running
I surveyed the Elites on their pure run times, but of course in a HYROX you’re not just running – you have the stations in between. HYROX rewards repeatability under fatigue. Running 1km on fresh legs is very different to running 1km after pushing a sled for 50 metres, for example. As Dylan Scott put it to us: “The stations start throwing wrenches at your legs – your movement economy starts getting tarnished.”
How good an athlete is at “compromised running” will be a bigger determinant of race day performance than your pure run times in training.
The current Men’s Pro world record holder (at the time of writing) Alexander Roncevic has been incredibly impressive throughout his whole HYROX career, and especially so this season. I don’t think anyone who has seen any of his races this year will doubt his ability to run and he consistently has one of – if not the – fastest run times in the field. But his 5km, 10km etc times are actually some of the slowest in this year’s Elite 15 lineup. It’s his ability to do it when it matters, on race day, compromised, that helps his incredible performances.
Station Ability
HYROX is definitely not just a running game. You need to be able to perform on the 8 workout stations, and in addition to strength, and “fitness”, and all the other factors in this section, you simply need to be able to execute at the stations.
For example, you need technical proficiency – at the ergs, BBJ, sled pull and wall balls in particular. You could be the fittest, strongest athlete in the world, but if you Ski like a panicking octopus or wall ball like your hips are made of concrete, then you likely won’t make it to the top!
Linda Meier spoke with us about the importance of technique work “I spent a lot of time in training with technique work and running efficiency and stuff. I think this is something most people underrate at the moment.”
Meier’s coach, Bjoern Schinke, similarly said “Just good movement can be a strong or a fast movement. When you move well, you can train harder, prevent injuries, and race more efficiently.”
Nutrition
Nutrition and fuelling also appear to be becoming more professionalised at the Elite 15 level. Athletes are increasingly aware of the need to fuel properly for training and racing, and mid-race carbohydrates such as gels are far more common than they were a few seasons ago. Several Rox Lyfe podcast guests, including Morgan Schulz, have spoken openly about periods in their past of under-fuelling leading to illness, injury, or underperformance.
Suffice to say, if you’re under fuelled or dehydrated on race day, you’ll struggle to perform when it matters, and this can be a separator at the top of the sport.
(this seems as good a time as any to remind you to check out the range from MyProtein. Their Electrofuel and Energy Gels are particular favourites of mine and many in the Elite 15. If shopping with them use code ROXLYFE for a discount).
Pacing
Pacing is such a crucial part of a HYROX race. If you go out too fast (and many athletes do!) then you can quickly blow up and cost yourself huge chunks of time towards the end of the race. But at the Elite 15 level, if you lose contact with the leaders, it can be very hard to close the gap.
Pacing well is essential and those athletes who do it best – taking into account not only what’s going on in the race but also their own strengths and weaknesses – can gain time over those who have greater levels of fitness. Some athletes at the top (for example, Hunter McIntyre, Alexander Roncevic, and Tim Wenisch) can go out fast and maintain that through the race. But not everyone can do that.
One example of great pacing strategy shown in the Majors in the 25/26 was from James Kelly in Phoenix where he ultimately finished 2nd, despite leaving the farmers carry in 8th place, 71seconds behind the leader.
It’s probably worth adding that pacing well and not crashing too badly at the end of a race – can be helped in no small part by the right nutrition and hydration strategy (see previous section)!
Mindset
At the Elite 15 level, physical differences are often small, but mental differences can be decisive. How well someone copes with the pressures of race day, media duties, being in the spotlight, judging decisions, unexpected events, digging deep when needed, and much more all play a part.
“Training isn’t just physical preparation, it’s mental preparation.” – Steve Magness, told us on the Rox Lyfe podcast.
Again, this is not something that can be captured in a survey but it plays a huge part in any sport, including HYROX.
I often talk with guests on the Rox Lyfe podcast about the mental side of the sport, and in particular, where their mind goes when things get tough. Sean Noble was an example of this when I asked him about his mindset that helps him go unbroken on the wall balls (which he’s done several times in races). He told me “It’s easy to act tough in the gym. For me, real mental strength is when you’re deep in a race and still refuse to break on the wall balls. I just say to myself “this is a test here, Sean, do you have it or you don’t? If you break, then you’re not as mentally strong as you thought you were.””. He sees it almost as a challenge for himself, and his mental strength helps him to pull through.
Support
Although HYROX is ultimately an individual sport on race day, very few Elite 15 athletes are truly operating alone anymore. As the sport has professionalised, support systems around the athletes have become increasingly important.
That support can take many forms – coaches, physios, sponsors, training partners, recovery specialists, or simply being surrounded by people who understand the demands of competing at the top level. While difficult to quantify in a survey, those support systems likely contribute meaningfully to performance – especially in a race format where execution, composure, and recovery between efforts are so important.
Coaches now play a major role not just in programming training, but also in race preparation, pacing strategy, warm-ups, fuelling, recovery, and managing the psychological side of competition. At the elite level, even small improvements in preparation, decision-making, or energy management can have a significant impact over the course of a race.
Crowd support and race-day communication may also play a larger role than many people realise. Unlike some endurance events where athletes can become isolated for long periods, HYROX repeatedly brings competitors back through the Roxzone and spectator areas. That creates regular opportunities for encouragement, split feedback, pacing reminders, lap counting, and tactical communication from coaches or support teams.
On a recent Rox Lyfe podcast episode, Chris Bayens spoke about how Cole Learn has intentionally designed his life around giving himself the best possible chance of becoming a HYROX world champion. That level of structure is becoming increasingly common across the Elite 15 field.
Summary
The 2026 HYROX Elite 15 data shows a sport moving quickly. The fields are faster, deeper, more professional, and increasingly shaped by athletes who can combine strong running ability with repeatable station execution under fatigue.
But the numbers also show there is no single HYROX body type, background, or training model. The best athletes are not simply the strongest, the lightest, or the highest-volume trainers. They are the ones who can bring together endurance, strength endurance, skill, pacing, composure and race-day execution when it matters most.
As the sport continues to evolve, these athletes set the benchmark for aspiring competitors worldwide, and hopefully this article has given you some idea of what it takes.
