Ilona Maher Is the Role Model I Wish I'd Had as a Young Athlete

Professional rugby player Ilona Maher first popped up on my TikTok For You Page a while back, and though I always found her content fun and engaging, it wasn't until the 2024 Paris Olympics that I've realized what an incredible role model the U.S. rugby sevens center, 27, is. In fact, she's exactly the athlete I would have loved to look up to as a kid playing sports.

Maher's list of athletic accomplishments is long—she's a two-time Olympian (with a Bronze medal from this year's games) who's also played in the World Championships in 2018 and 2022—but it's her off-the-field presence that's endeared her to me and scores of other fans. (The athlete has racked up an impressive 4.4 million followers across TikTok and Instagram.)

While I love her insanely impressive rugby clips and Love Island recaps as much as the next person, the content that's resonated most with me centers around her commitment to spreading body positivity. Maher is 5'10" and 200-ish pounds (she says she fluctuates between 194 and 200). At the start of this year's games, Maher shared a TikTok saying—and I'm paraphrasing—as you watch the Olympics, notice all of the body types on display; all body types are beautiful and can do amazing things, so see yourself in these athletes and know that you can do it too.

Growing up, my now-six-foot self was the tallest and probably heaviest person on every soccer and lacrosse team I played on. I remember being so ashamed at being bigger that I couldn't see the fact that my size was an asset. Sure, there were prominent athletes who I saw as a kid and young adult who looked like me, but Maher's unabashed and very public celebrations of her body—all bodies—is what sets her apart and makes her an incredible figure for young athletes—who might be feeling the way I did as a kid—to look up to.

In another video, she responds to a comment seemingly bodyshaming her for having a BMI of 30. (As a quick reminder, many experts agree BMI is a poor metric for measuring health.) Rather than refuting the claim or ignoring the comment, Maher opens up about feeling embarrassed in high school to turn in a physical that labeled her overweight, before recalling conversations with a dietitian about how being "overweight" isn't an indication of how healthy a person is. She concludes the video saying, "So, yeah, I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight. But alas, I'm going to the Olympics and you're not." Period.

She's also just a joy to watch both on and off the rugby field, from destroying the competition in Paris to trading Olympic pins with Simone Biles and pitching Jason Kelce that he should be a women's rugby superfan a la Flavor Flav and the women's water polo team. She's funny, she's talented and she doesn't seem to take herself too seriously (but at the same time could kick your ass in 2.5 seconds).

All of this is to say that I'm thrilled that young athletes watching the Olympic Games while scrolling TikTok (you know how the kids love their phones) get to watch someone like Ilona Maher.