Months after rising as one among Crew USA’s largest stars throughout the 2024 Olympics, rugby participant Ilona Maher determined to change up her sport by briefly relocating to England to play a brief contract for the Bristol Bears. Spoiler: People throughout the pond had been simply as stoked to see her dominate on the pitch as her hometown followers are.
Prematurely of her extremely anticipated January debut within the Premiership Girls’s Rugby league, ticket gross sales soared so excessive that the match was moved to accommodate a bigger crowd, in response to RugbyPass. Coping with a media storm whereas adjusting to a brand new tradition seems like a frightening double whammy, however Maher reviews the transition was fairly easy. Which isn’t to say she doesn’t pine for sure points of American life—and delicacies. “I’m lacking an excellent salty pickle,” she tells SELF. Veggies too. Generally, Maher will whip up “somewhat Sweetgreen dupe” when she’s hankering for the massive, recent salads she will simply get at residence.
Taking part in for the Bears is the most recent in a protracted line of tasks which have adopted Maher’s Olympic sophomore look. Since her workforce earned the US’s first Olympic rugby medal in 100 years (and the US’s first piece of {hardware} in girls’s rugby, interval) after they positioned third on the Paris Video games, Maher has saved busy: She’s modeled for the swimsuit problem of Sports activities Illustrated, walked the purple carpet on the Emmys, and made Forbes’ storied 30 Underneath 30 record. To not point out, she’s partnered with a wide selection of manufacturers—together with sunscreen firm Coppertone, because the face of its new Unbeatable Sport marketing campaign. (For Maher, the partnership felt like an natural match since she considers the model’s sports activities spray merchandise “a staple” in her locker room routine.)
As her simple adjustment to UK rugby reveals, Maher can adapt to a number of new conditions—one thing which was maybe much more evident throughout her current activate the superstar competitors present Dancing With the Stars lower than two months after the Olympics. On this case, she had completely zero expertise with the brand new job at hand, so the trail was somewhat trickier. Nicely, a lot trickier, really. “I’ve by no means been a dancer. I’ve by no means needed to study a routine,” Maher says.
The transition from rugby to bounce proved “very robust mentally.” Due to her expertise on the pitch, Maher had the power and agility to execute all of the strikes, however memorizing choreography was a completely novel problem. Particularly when it got here to 1 kind of dance particularly: jive, a high-energy model that requires, in Maher’s phrases, “a number of quick steps.” “I favored the slower dances. I favored the rumba—that was my favourite,” she says. “However jive actually obtained to me mentally in some ways and was so draining.”
With DWTS, Maher hoped to indicate “how versatile and dynamic” she could possibly be, tackling a brand new type of motion that’s approach completely different from her main sport. By taking over each, she could possibly be elegant in addition to robust, sleek but robust. However Maher additionally acknowledged that it was a chance to unfold her message additional: to consider within the power and fantastic thing about your physique. Regardless of your measurement or form, “you could be something that you simply wish to be,” she says. From making TikToks highlighting her cellulite to show “all of us have it,” to clapping again at trolls speculating about her BMI, to sharing ideas for surviving unhealthy physique picture days, she has constantly used her platform to push again in opposition to dangerous magnificence requirements.
