The rugby star has amassed fans all around the world with her social media content.
The 2024 Paris Olympics are already in full swing and it seems like they are gearing up to be one of the most exciting Olympics ever. Sports fans and non-sports fans alike come together for these two weeks of exhilarating games, matches, and races. Also, in addition to the sports themselves, there will be many specific athletes that viewers at home will have their eyes on. In fact, American women’s rugby star Ilona Maher has been grabbing people’s attention for the past few years. Specifically, a lot of that attention has come from the athlete’s top-notch online presence that has led to her having millions of fans. Here are all of the facts about Ilona Maher and everything you need to know about how to watch her and her team compete at this year’s Olympics.
Maher was born on August 12, 1996 and comes from Burlington, Vermont. She was the middle child with two sisters and she always had a love of sports. After attending Burlington High School, Maher became a student at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, where she graduated with a degree in nursing After graduating from Quinnipiac, she got her masters in business administration from DeVry University. In addition to playing rugby, Maher is also the co-founder of the skincare brand Medalist, which is what she works on and promotes when she is not on the pitch.
Maher played many sports when she was a child, but it was not until she was seventeen that she began playing rugby. She first joined the South Burlington School Rugby Football Club due to encouragement from her father, who was a college rugby player himself. She began playing rugby in college at Norwich College. She left the school after a year when she was recruited by Quinnipiac to play for their team. With her new school, Maher helped her team win three National Intercollegiate Rugby Association championships. She received the MA Sorensen Award in 2017, which is given annually to the top women’s college rugby player.
While in college, she was playing rugby sevens, which is a competition where rugby teams have seven people each, at Scion Rugby Academy.
