Fitness Training
Dream big, train hard – Ida Mathilde's rise in fitness racing
The multi-time Obstacle Course Racing world champ is now turning her full attention to HYROX – and is already challenging the elite field.
Ida Mathilde Steensgaard is the obstacle queen. The 33-year-old Dane is renowned for being one of Obstacle Course Racing's (OCR) best-ever athletes, with two OCR World Championships and three European medals in her trophy cabinet. But she's always looked for the next challenge to discover her limits, as seen in her recent World’s Toughest Playground project.
In 2022, she competed in HYROX for the first time and was hooked – the hybrid fitness race format pushing her mentally and physically like never before.
Ida Mathilde Steensgaard powers through the lunges at HYROX Hong Kong
© Brian Ching / Red Bull Content Pool
While she juggled OCR and HYROX for the next two years, she entered the 2024–25 HYROX season with a clear goal in mind. "HYROX has been a thing I've been shuffling in and out for the last two years. It's not fully switched yet, but it almost is," she says. "I did the OCR European Championships this summer, which was one week after the HYROX World Championships, where I competed in the team relay. I felt like I wanted to get a bit better at the sport and maybe needed a new challenge.
"There are some similarities between obstacle racing and HYROX, but there are also a lot of differences. I knew that if I wanted to be competitive in this sport, I had to go all-in and focus on it. So, that's what I started doing since the summer. It hasn't been that long yet, but it's getting there."
Breakthrough race in Hong Kong: Challenging the HYROX pros
The fitness racing trailblazer Steensgaard participated in her first Elite 15 Major – HYROX's professional class – in Hong Kong. Competing against seasoned professionals, she delivered a remarkable performance, securing a strong fourth-place finish in the Elite Women division.
This achievement not only showcased her rapid rise in the sport but also guaranteed her a coveted spot at the 2025 HYROX World Championships, solidifying Steensgaard's status as a top-tier competitor in the hybrid fitness world.
“I am honestly really proud of myself. I had nothing to lose in this race, everything to win. It was my first Major, and I just pushed myself. I had a good battle with Kate [Davey], and then I snagged the ticket for the world championships. It was amazing,” she said after crossing the line.
“It's wild because it's been maybe three to four months focusing on HYROX. I had two races in a short amount of time within the last six weeks, so everything has just taken off. I qualified two and a half weeks ago for this race and was like, ‘You know what? Let's do it.’
“I know how to take it deep, find the beast mode from OCR and I like competing. This sport is really amazing and the girls here are so good. We're so close, it's so exciting, so I can find that extra gear.
Managing setbacks
Her path to the top hasn't been without difficulties and Steensgaard has had to show resilience and passion to succeed in the face of adversity. From taking the plunge to striking a balance between competing and recovery, here’s her route to the pinnacle of HYROX.
Ida Mathilde has been an OCR champion for years
© Jesper Gronnemark/Red Bull Content Pool
Now she's got the HYROX bug and is making waves in the sport
© Baptiste Fauchille/Red Bull Content Pool
Making the move from OCR to HYROX and learning from mistakes
Steensgaard first tackled HYROX Hamburg in 2022, finishing third in the HYROX Pro category and first in her age group with a time of 1h 5m 12s. While still training with a focus on OCR during the week, she saw the benefits that HYROX could bring to her overall fitness. "Running has been the very common ground, but I've become stronger. What's elevated my fitness in another way with HYROX is the strength training – a lot of the very explosive movements and power, strength and endurance required to be able to do these very heavy stations."
After her racing debut, she participated in the 2023 Maastricht European Championships in the Elite 15 category, where she showed grit and determination despite coming home in 14th place. "I started out too hard and I had a super hard time breathing properly. I wanted to quit and ended up crying through the last two stations, but still wanted to finish. A tough experience and I learned a lot."
The 33-year-old didn't let this disappointment stop her, though, and was back in the HYROX arena during the 2023-24 season, which included a second-place finish in HYROX Copenhagen's Pro division and top-10 finish with Denmark in the World Championship Team Relay.
She stepped things up even further for 2024-25, kicking-off her season with a personal best of 1h 2m 19s in the HYROX Stuttgart Pro division and second place at HYROX Hamburg, which secured qualification for her first HYROX Elite 15 Major in Hong Kong.
A World Championship spot is the goal for Ida Mathilde this season
© Baptiste Fauchille/Red Bull Content Pool
I do have a lack of experience actually in the Majors, but I've competed in high-level sports for years
Overcoming adversity
The Danish athlete's rise to the top of HYROX hasn't been plain sailing. She had been unknowingly training and competing with a superior labrum anterior to posterior (SLAP) tear in her shoulder since April 2024 and was only diagnosed with the issue after a visit to Red Bull's Athlete Performance Centre in August.
Rehab, rest and recovery followed, and she worked with the experts at the APC to rebuild her strength and get back on track. The injury meant she wasn't able to defend her OCR World Championships in Costa Rica, while it also appeared to put a dent in her target of reaching the 2025 HYROX World Championships before the season was properly underway.
However, Steensgaard saw the setback as an opportunity, posting on her Instagram: "As athletes, we thrive on progress, but with so many races on my calendar, I never gave myself the proper time to recover and get back on track. After taking three months off from competing (which felt like forever for me), I've learned the hard but valuable lesson that sometimes, less is more. Prioritising my physical and mental well-being has become more important than ever."
A major injury put Ida Mathilde out of action for a while earlier this year
© Baptiste Fauchille/Red Bull Content Pool
Striking a balance
Her enforced recovery has shifted her mindset and has opened up a new pathway where she’s able to balance rehabilitation, creativity and competitive success rather than focusing solely on racing.
The creation of the Red Bull World’s Toughest Playground is a great example – Steensgaard designing an extreme obstacle course that embodied her adventurous mindset before putting herself through the wringer in “the hardest OCR challenge of my life”.
Ida Mathilde's World's Toughest Playground truly was just that
© Jesper Gronnemark/Red Bull Content Pool
“I have been competing in OCR for many years, and I've reached the pinnacle of this sport and defended my World Championship title,” she says. “We really wanted to give myself the toughest challenge ever, combining obstacles you've never seen before, obstacles I've struggled with throughout my career and some that I'm good at to make a tough challenge for myself."
This new balanced outlook is paying off – six days later, after filming the World's Toughest Playground, she competed at HYROX Hamburg and qualified for the Elite 15. “If there’s a possibility you can do it, it should be enough. I didn't think that I would be able to both do the Red Bull World’s Toughest Playground and try to qualify for the HYROX Majors within the same period, especially taking into account that I've been struggling with a shoulder injury that I am around 80 percent recovered from. But I knew there was a small possibility and here I stand now, both these goals achieved.”