HYROX World Championships Head to France

HYROX

The global fitness racing event organiser will host its ‘23–’24 championships in Nice, France at the Palais des Congrès Acropolis.

Winners circle. The three-day event is slated for next June, where participants will compete in elite and age-designated divisions, including singles and doubles races, with a $150K prize purse up for grabs.

Mass movement. Turning functional fitness into a mass-participation event akin to a 5K, HYROX founder Christian Toetzke designed the race format with accessibility in mind. Appealing to an array of exercisers, the series has seen sign-ups grow from 11K in 2018 to more than 175K in the current season.

Taking notice, organisers are racing to create HYROX-inspired events of their own.

  • Earlier this year, UK-based ATHX announced its “continuous 2.5-hour” functional fitness competition.
  • Debuting this fall in the US, Hybricon Games from Battle Bunker aim to set the benchmark for both mental and physical conditioning.
  • Spartan Race is expanding its fitness decathlon DEKA FIT, offering events, gym affiliates, and coaching certifications.

In the gym. Building a pipeline of would-be competitors, earlier this year, HYROX partnered with Xponential Fitness-owned Body Fit Training (BFT) for in-studio programming geared towards fitness racing.

Another approach, European health club operator PureGym is hosting a fitness competition for exercisers over 50 years old to encourage active ageing and member engagement.

Looking ahead: While CrossFit’s annual affiliate-run Open and globally broadcast Games contests paved the way for fitness competitions, the events of tomorrow are removing barriers and overhead to hosting mass-participation races the world over.