Months after emerging as one of Team USA’s biggest stars during the 2024 Olympics, rugby player Ilona Maher decided to switch up her game by temporarily relocating to England to play a short contract for the Bristol Bears. Spoiler: Folks across the pond were just as stoked to see her dominate on the pitch as her hometown fans are.
In advance of her highly anticipated January debut in the Premiership Women’s Rugby league, ticket sales soared so high that the match was moved to accommodate a larger crowd, according to RugbyPass. Dealing with a media storm while adjusting to a new culture sounds like a daunting double whammy, but Maher reports the transition was pretty smooth. Which isn’t to say she doesn’t pine for certain aspects of American life—and cuisine. “I’m missing a good salty pickle,” she tells SELF. Veggies, too. Sometimes, Maher will whip up “a little Sweetgreen dupe” when she’s hankering for the big, fresh salads she can easily get at home.
Playing for the Bears is the latest in a long line of projects that have followed Maher’s Olympic sophomore appearance. Since her team earned the US’s first Olympic rugby medal in 100 years (and the US’s first piece of hardware in women’s rugby, period) when they placed third at the Paris Games, Maher has kept busy: She’s modeled for the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, walked the red carpet at the Emmys, and made Forbes’ storied “30 Under 30” list. Not to mention, she’s partnered with a wide array of brands—including sunscreen company Coppertone, as the face of its new “Unbeatable Sport” campaign. (For Maher, the partnership felt like an organic fit since she considers the brand’s sports spray products “a staple” in her locker room routine.)
As her easy adjustment to UK rugby shows, Maher can adapt to a lot of new situations—something which was perhaps even more evident during her recent turn on the celebrity competition show “Dancing With the Stars” less than two months after the Olympics. In this case, she had absolutely zero experience with the new task at hand, so the path was a little trickier. Well, a lot trickier, actually. “I’ve never been a dancer. I’ve never had to learn a routine,” Maher says.
The transition from rugby to dance proved “very tough mentally.” Thanks to her experience on the pitch, Maher had the strength and agility to execute all the moves, but memorizing choreography was an entirely novel challenge. Especially when it came to one type of dance in particular: jive, a high-energy style that requires, in Maher’s words, “a lot of fast steps.” “I liked the slower dances. I liked the rumba—that was my favorite,” she says. “But jive really got to me mentally in many ways and was so draining.”
With DWTS, Maher hoped to show “how versatile and dynamic” she could be, tackling a new form of movement that’s way different from her primary sport. By taking on both, she could be elegant as well as tough, graceful yet strong. But Maher also recognized that it was an opportunity to spread her message further: to believe in the strength and beauty of your body. No matter your size or shape, “you can be anything that you want to be,” she says. From making TikToks highlighting her cellulite to prove “we all have it,” to clapping back at trolls speculating about her BMI, to sharing tips for surviving bad body image days, she has consistently used her platform to push back against harmful beauty standards.
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