Zug, Switzerland – Infront, a Wanda Sports Group company, has entered the sports fitness market by investing in mass participation company HYROX.
HYROX is a unique indoor fitness competition designed for both amateurs and professional athletes. Competitors at all events cover the same course with up to 3,000 participants competing each time.
Races can be completed as an individual or in pairs and are composed of eight 1km runs which include a functional workout after every kilometre. Events are measurable via a timing chip allowing individuals to compare results of both single and double competitors across women's and men's amateur and professional divisions as well as age groups through the HYROX Global Rankings.
Each season culminates with the HYROX World Championships – due to take place in Berlin next year –where athletes with the fastest times from each division in each city go head-to-head.
Hans-Peter Zurbruegg, Senior Vice President Personal and Corporate Fitness, said: "This investment is all about promoting a new sport and getting in on the ground floor of a growing trend in the fitness industry. It forms part of our strategic roadmap to broaden our Personal and Corporate Fitness footprint, complementing our summer portfolio with events during the winter season and meeting a demand from the growing fitness market."
Christian Toetzke, Founding Partner & Managing Director of HYROX said: "Infront is an excellent partner with a vast amount of experience in mass participation and endurance events and will help us to achieve our ambitious expansion goals to change the world of fitness by establishing HYROX as the global leader in fitness events."
Moritz Fuerste, Founding Partner, Managing Director of HYROX and double hockey Olympic Gold Medallist said: "HYROX is meeting a global demand to become the first mass participation fitness competition which caters to millions of fitness enthusiasts and gym members around the world. Its accessibility and attainability for all athletes has helped it grow rapidly. Infront's investment, which includes leveraging its broad expertise, will help accelerate that growth further."
The 2019/20 season has already started and will see nine events take place in Europe and five in the US. The recent event in Hamburg was sold out with over 3,000 participants and attracted almost 10,000 spectators.
This is the latest investment following other Personal and Corporate Fitness acquisitions such as Threshold and Megamarsch in 2019.
Upsolut Sports was founded in 2017 by three partners combining their diverse backgrounds. Christian Toetzke has over 20 years of experience in the global sports event business, with a diverse range of accomplishments. Two-time Field Hockey Olympic Gold Medalist, Moritz Fürste, brings an extensive sports network, and Michael Trautmann, founder of the advertising agency thjnk, brings global marketing expertise. The vision of Upsolut Sports was to create a new sports product to fill a gap in the market with new, dynamic and inspiring concepts. HYROX is the result. HYROX is inspired by a simple idea. Millions of athletes all over the world who do not play sports but prefer functional fitness or working out at the gym, do not have a measurable competition. Now, HYROX is the new goal for fitness enthusiasts.