Fitness
Fitness
How Laura Horváth is using fitness, family and fortitude at HYROX Worlds
Laura Horváth is one of several elite functional fitness athletes now taking on HYROX. Her edge? Working closely with her brother and training partner, Kristóf Horváth.
Under the lights of Stockholm’s Strawberry Arena, 6,000 of the world’s most impressive hybrid and functional fitness athletes will be taking to the competition floor on the sport’s biggest stage: the 2026 HYROX World Championships.
Amongst the top-tier athletes competing under the lights, including current HYROX world record holders Alexander Rončević and Joanna Wietrzyk, is another household name not from HYROX, but from the high-octane world of functional fitness: Hungarian athlete Laura Horváth.
In Stockholm, Laura Horváth will be stepping outside of competitive functional fitness and is set to compete with her brother, coach and business partner, Kristóf, in the Pro Doubles division. It’s here that the two will step into a new field, go head-to-head against some of the world’s best age-group athletes and, all being well, beat their previous record of 58m 24s from HYROX Cologne. Taking place on Sunday, June 21, there’s nothing to lose for the duo from Budapest. Yet, there’s everything to gain.
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The challenges of HYROX
Laura and Kristóf Horváth are siblings and HYROX Doubles partners
© Shadi Mahayni/Red Bull Content Pool
Coming from the world of elite functional fitness (and as the winner of the 2025 World Fitness Project), Laura brings with her an engine few can match, but HYROX, with its different demands and training modalities, is sure to present its own challenges to the pair.
That’s because functional fitness has always meant variety - a different stimulus every round, often with little warning and the freedom to lean on whichever strength can get the athlete through. With workouts and competitions built around multi-joint movements, like squatting, pulling and pushing, combined with elements of weightlifting, gymnastics and cardiovascular conditioning, functional fitness competitions become particularly unique and are notorious for throwing athletes into the unknown.
HYROX, however, offers no such escape for its racers. Across the standardised course, it’s eight identical laps of a kilometre run into a station, the same sled weight and the same lung-burning efforts on the SkiErg and rowing machine. That rigidity could work against the pair - there's nowhere to hide a weaker movement, after all - but it also plays directly into the trait functional fitness has spent years building in her: the refusal to fold when the race ramps up. “Laura's greatest strengths are leaning into who she is as a person and as an athlete,” says Kristóf, “never giving up and having a determination that never wavers.”
Laura and Kristof warm up ahead of a training session
© Kristof Horváth/Red Bull Content Pool
Laura's greatest strengths are leaning into who she is as a person and as an athlete
For the Hungarian athlete, “work capacity and not panicking under fatigue” are two of her strengths, born of functional fitness, that she sees as a direct transfer to HYROX. “In functional fitness, you learn to keep moving when everything hurts - the sled, the wall balls, the sandbag lunges, none of that is unfamiliar territory”.
However, she says, “the race as a whole gives a real challenge with 8km of total running volume between stations.” Elsewhere in a HYROX Mixed Pro Doubles race, athletes use a weight standard higher than those competing in the Open, including a 152kg sled push, 103kg sled pull and 24kg farmer’s carry - all before finishing with 100 wall balls at 6kg.
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Laura and Kristóf Horváth’s unbreakable bond
The Horváth family gather in Budapest for Laura's film premiere
© Ádám Bertalan/Red Bull Content Pool
To get through each stage of the race, the Horváth siblings will lean on their unbreakable bond. “Fitness made us closer as siblings,” she says of her older brother, coach and key training strategist. Often spotted by her side during competitions and in training, Kristóf has said that “Laura's given me a purpose in life,” a sentiment explored in a new documentary about his sister's ascent in the sport, which traces how the duo's dynamic has defined throughout their childhood.
The duo's upbringing in Budapest was “rooted in sports,” Laura said to the Red Bulletin. "My Dad did the decathlon and my Mum did track.” Laura credits a love of fitness as “part of our whole existence,” bringing the siblings closer under the tutelage of their parents at the family’s climbing gym. “I wanted to do what he did,” she says of Kristóf. “He was my big brother and I was his little shadow.”
Few pro HYROX partnerships go back this far
© Mischfabrik/Red Bull Content Pool
There’s a shorthand that you can’t build with a training partner in a few months
Decades later, and against the backdrop of the 2026 HYROX World Championships, this partnership will take on its latest form as the two compete in the Pro Doubles division, where their instinctive connection becomes their most valuable asset in a wholly new discipline.
Having lived and trained, celebrated and commiserated with one another, Laura explains that “there’s a shorthand that you can’t build with a training partner in a few months,” and credits their skill as a HYROX pair to a life spent working in close quarters. “It makes it more personal, as you can’t hide anything from someone who’s known you your whole life. He knows exactly when I’m struggling and I know when he’s bluffing.”
Laura Horváth hones her sled push technique
© Leo Rosas/Red Bull Content Pool
This close bond was best witnessed in one of Laura’s most defining moments, with an agonising ninth-place finish in Indianapolis at the 2025 WFP; but it was Kristóf who built her back up soon after. “We have this rule not to let the highs get too high and not stay in the lows too long either,” he reflected on the event.
With Kristóf watching from the sidelines (often, he won’t step foot near the course and chooses to watch behind the scenes), Laura would go on to secure a first-place finish in Copenhagen. It proved that a Horváth’s signature steely resolve is an unbeatable asset, whether working on a one-rep max deadlift or going shoulder-to-shoulder against the world’s best HYROX athletes.
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Testing their family ties in a new arena
Having topped the WFP, Laura Horváth is testing herself in HYROX
© Ádám Bertalan/Red Bull Content Pool
So, how will this approach fare against the infamous HYROX race course, where Pro Doubles teams with years of race experience under their belts will be racing against team Horváth? “They know exactly what they have in the tank at kilometre six,” Laura acknowledges. “That race awareness takes time to build - you can’t fake experience.” It’s here Laura and Kristóf will capitalise on the years spent together and make strides on the course.
Now fluent in high-octane fitness events, Laura and Kristóf have spent the last few months focusing on key parts of their fitness ahead of racing Pro Doubles at Stockholm. Namely, “running economy, as it’s a key element both in racing and in training,” says Laura. “In HYROX, it takes up over 60 percent of the race.” Here, she continues, is where she’s been focusing on her training - including track sessions with 2025 HYROX World Champion Tim Wenisch - to ensure “I can be fast over a relatively long distance; but it’s been a challenge, for sure.”
That race awareness takes time to build - you can’t fake experience
As any sibling or family member can attest, feelings of sibling rivalry can rear their head at any moment - whether you're training early, running a business together, or competing in front of thousands. For the Horváth siblings, who also co-founded Kaduzs, a functional fitness gym in Budapest, their connection can turn into a strategic advantage on the HYROX course.
"Who's more competitive between the two of us?" Laura muses. "Kristóf will say it's me, but I'll say him,” she laughs. “Both are probably true." In Stockholm, against a starting pen full of more experienced fitness racers, the Horváth siblings will see just how far their bond can take them.
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How to watch Laura and Kristóf Horváth at the HYROX World Championships
Laura Horváth, as shot by Kristóf Horváth
© Kristof Horváth/Red Bull Content Pool
Few athletes arrive at a competitive fitness world championship as the reigning World Fitness Project champion, only to step onto an entirely new field as the underdog. That gap between pedigree and inexperience is exactly what makes Laura and Kristóf’s race at Stockholm worth tuning in for.
You can watch Laura and Kristóf Horváth compete at the HYROX World Championships on Sunday, June 21 at 7.30am CEST via HYROX’s official YouTube channel.
