In this commentary, the speaker critiques the viral Chinese social media support for a female Hyrox competitor who defecated during a Beijing event. He argues that the praise reflects a misguided admiration for perseverance while ignoring the biohazard and selfishness of the act. The speaker suggests a racial and cultural bias at play: foreign athletes, especially those perceived as white or English‑speaking, receive deference that discourages staff from intervening, whereas a Chinese athlete might have faced harsher consequences. He links this to broader issues with Hyrox’s event protocols and local cultural dynamics that prioritize avoiding offense to foreign guests over safety. Additionally, he highlights the role of Chinese billionaire Wang Shi, a prominent Hyrox enthusiast who helped popularize the sport in China, questioning what security measures were in place given his presence at the event.
Chapters
Some of the people on Chinese social media are actually insane because why is there so much support for that girl who pooped at high rocks? I was on Chinese social media and the high rocks incident is obviously going viral there too. The whole thing took place in Beijing and I was so surprised to see a lot of people actually saying that she's such an inspiration for persisting under such conditions. I'm like, what level of insanity do you have to be to not recognize the complete selfishness and the biohazard. I think there is genuinely a racial element to it. I'm gonna try to word this very carefully. From my experience being born and raised in China, I have experienced how people treat you differently once they know that you have some sort of affiliation with other countries, if you can speak English, and especially if you're white. They'll treat you with a level of respect and reverence almost, knowing that you're from a different country. In this case, I think It's a large factor of why no one did anything about it at the time. I could imagine being on the staff team there and no one wants to be the first one to stand out and say, oh, we have to cancel the event, like, we cannot let this happen, when it's a foreign decorated athlete. Would someone have said anything if it were a Chinese athlete? Honestly, there's no real answer, but I personally do believe that the treatment would have been very different. It's both an issue with the HIROX protocol as a whole, but also the local kind of culture and environment. Because like it's obviously just like not safe at all, but no one wants to bear the responsibility of pissing off some foreign guest. Also, another thing that no one's talked about: the reason why high rocks became popular in China in the first place is largely thanks to this one man called Wang Shi, who's a 75-year-old billionaire. He used to be one of the biggest property developers in the world, and now he's obsessed with high rocks. He's won a couple times, and he was at the event. He was literally competing in the same event, and I wonder. What he thought about it at the time, because there's gotta be like security measures, right? Like, I'm sure that he's not happy about this, but not even billionaires are safe from poop incidents.
