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Bhakti Mathur

Claire Nesbitt spent years training her palate to spot balance, structure and subtlety in a glass of wine. Now, she uses the same precision to build speed, strength and endurance in herself and her clients.
From being a wine critic tasting 40 wines in a day, she has transformed into one of Asia’s fastest Hyrox athletes and a full-time coach.
Hyrox, a fast-growing sport that combines running with fitness feats, became her focus after she entered the first women’s open event in Hong Kong, in 2022, on short notice – and won. After winning many more Hyrox races across Asia, she was named a Hyrox Hong Kong ambassador.
She will represent Hong Kong for the fourth consecutive year in Stockholm from June 18 to 21 at the world championships, and will take part in the Hong Kong event from May 8 to 10 at AsiaWorld-Expo.
Sporty from a young age
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Nesbitt was always sporty: she grew up playing tennis, rugby, netball and basketball at school, and horse riding at Lei Yue Mun Public Riding School.
“I had a great relationship with sport and movement,” says the 30-year-old, who started running at 14, first to lose weight, then because she loved it.

She has competed in more than a dozen road and trail races and placed in the top 50 women in the Hong Kong Standard Chartered Marathon in 2023 and 2025.
“I was ambitious and academic,” says Nesbitt, who studied chemistry at Oxford and joined McKinsey & Company in London upon graduation. The consulting job was exciting, but another interest captivated her more: wine.
“Growing up, I enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner with my dad, who taught me the basics,” she says. Her curiosity led her to buy wine online and discover wines from different regions. She paused her job to study wine, gastronomy and management at Le Cordon Bleu in London.
When Covid sent London into lockdown, she returned to Hong Kong and began working for the JamesSuckling wine website.
She held fast to fitness, running four to five times weekly and taking classes at the gym.
A surprise win
In late 2022, a week before its debut in Hong Kong, she caught wind of the new Hyrox sporting challenge – Asia’s first such event.
“I signed up at the last minute, took a Hyrox class the day before, and arrived at the race with little idea of what to expect,” she says.
She won the women’s open race.
Hyrox involves eight sets of 1km (0.6-mile) runs interspersed with eight punishing fitness challenges. Challenges range from sled pushes and pulls to SkiErg (a standing exercise that mimics the motion of ski poles), wall balls (squatting and throwing a medicine ball up to strike a target) and farmers carry (walking while carrying two heavy kettlebells).

“I won because of my cardio fitness. The race was hard. The stations were tough. I made all the mistakes that I now coach people against,” Nesbitt says – including pushing the “sled” with straight arms.
“I was happy, but also shocked, and told my friends and family that ‘I won a race’ – no one knew what it was at the time.”
That event altered her life’s path. She met new people who became her “Hyrox friends”, including her doubles racing partner Clare Cheung. “We are very much in sync when it comes to racing together.”
Winning qualified Nesbitt for the Hyrox World Championships in Manchester in 2023, and she was determined to level up to the pro category. That required pushing heavier sleds, lifting heavier sandbags and doing lunges with heavier weights.












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‘Mass moves mass’
Hyrox forced Nesbitt to rethink not just how she trained, but how she saw her body.
“I was scared of gaining weight since I was a teenager. It wasn’t so much a fear of lifting weights, but a fear of eating ‘too much’. I didn’t understand that you can’t build muscle without eating more. And I didn’t know that you can look leaner with more muscle.”
Her fiancé, personal trainer Shokhrukh Ergashev, became her sounding board and helped her develop a gym programme to follow that involved training three times a week.
“He encouraged me to eat more and build muscle. He said ‘mass moves mass’, and it became a mantra. I had an excuse to eat more!” says Nesbitt, who went from a 51kg (112lbs) “skinny runner” to 56kg.

She focused on heavy leg work and upper body exercises for her back, chest and shoulders. Initially, she could not do a single pull-up; now she can do 10.
She focuses on eating enough protein and fuelling up for her training sessions.
“Before Hyrox, I would go for a run in the morning on only a cup of tea … now, I have cereal or oats with fruit before my morning workout, and have another breakfast afterwards of yogurt with protein powder, berries and peanut butter.”
Her lunch is usually chicken or salmon with vegetables and rice, and a banana before afternoon training. She and Ergashev usually prepare dinner together; a spicy bell-pepper-based chicken stew is a favourite dish.
She still enjoys a couple of glasses of wine each week.












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Challenges and full-time coaching
The sporting life comes with challenges. In April 2025, she partially tore her left hip flexor tendon, forcing her out of several races.
Physiotherapist Dr Kieran Rogers at the Momentum clinic in Hong Kong’s Central neighbourhood helped her adapt her training, replacing running with ski and rowing work.
It took three months for her to run for more than a few minutes, and another couple of months to get back to training.
She has suffered from shin splints since her university days, sometimes keeping her from running for weeks. She is currently recovering from them.
“Injuries are an inevitable risk when you are training and racing hard, but including rest and recovery, strength training, and gradual progression is important to keep athletes injury-free,” she says.

Nesbitt began coaching in late 2024 as a side project after taking the NASM CPT (certified personal trainer) qualification offered by the US National Academy of Sports Medicine and Hyrox coaching courses. A year later, she had enough clients and confidence to make coaching her full-time career.
“I have coached clients into doing their first marathons or Hyrox races, and even to podium finishes. It is immensely satisfying. I enjoy working for myself, planning my training ahead of time and seeing the bigger picture of it,” she says.
“Growth isn’t about changing who you are. Whether it’s a career pivot or a personal challenge, it’s about showing up consistently and working towards your goals.”
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Claire Nesbitt pushes a sled in the Hyrox Pro Women race in Seoul, South Korea, in November 2025. She is one of Asia’s fastest Hyrox athletes and a full-time coach. Photo: Claire Nesbitt

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Now one of Asia’s fastest Hyrox athletes, former wine critic Claire Nesbitt helps others achieve their Hyrox and other fitness goals


Now one of Asia’s fastest Hyrox athletes, former wine critic Claire Nesbitt helps others achieve their Hyrox and other fitness goals.


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How a Hong Kong Hyrox champion went from ‘skinny runner’ to top competitor

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Now one of Asia’s fastest Hyrox athletes, former wine critic Claire Nesbitt helps others achieve their Hyrox and other fitness goals

Now one of Asia’s fastest Hyrox athletes, former wine critic Claire Nesbitt helps others achieve their Hyrox and other fitness goals