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Olympian Ilonia Maher recently won bronze for Team USA in women’s rugby sevens at the Paris 2024 Olympics. While her impressive athletic performance gained a large audience for women’s sports, she has also received more attention for her positive use of social media.
The 28-year-old Olympian made her debut in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and has since been known for her online presence and Olympic performance. Around that time, she began to record much of her journey on Instagram, with only 567,000 followers. When Maher’s outstanding performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics aided in America’s women's rugby gaining their first medal, her Instagram began to truly flourish with a current number of 3.8 million followers.
Maher is praised on social media for sharing slices of her personal life and the life she leads as a rising athlete. Her posts speak out against stereotypes surrounding the body types and beauty standards of female athletes and women in general. Maher’s light-hearted attitude and warm personality has given her followers an image of what being unapologetically yourself looks like.
“People are always like, ‘You’re so unapologetically yourself,’ and I’m like, ‘What is everybody else doing out here?’ I don’t even try to be that. It’s just how I am.” Olympics.com.
In a sport like women’s rugby, many turn to hateful stereotypes, saying that the athletes are too masculine and bulky to fit America’s beauty standard of being.
Maher recently debuted as the cover model for Sport Illustrated Swimsuit Magazine in a bikini photoshoot, showing that she can display her beauty and feminine side without standards. The photos capturet her height and muscles and her iconic, red Maybelline lipstick, showing that women can be any body type and still be beautiful.
“I love that [rugby] showed me what I can do. It showed me how capable my body is and it’s not just like a tool to be looked at and objectified,” Maher told Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Magazine.
Maher has utilized social media as an athlete in a way that has challenged and broken many beauty standards about women’s bodies and appearances. She has exemplified confidence and humor as a way of respectfully going against negative comments on her reels and posts. Maher inspires other women to be confident and genuinely be themselves.
The Olympian has now created a memorable motto and used it as a hashtag: #beastbeautybrains, putting the idea that women can be strong, beautiful and intelligent in the spotlight where it belongs. When speaking at the Team USA Media Summit about playing a sport with many stereotypes, Maher states that she wants to eliminate the belief that women have to give up their femininity as athletes to play rugby.
“I also think you don't have to sacrifice your femininity or your beauty by playing it [rugby]," Maher told NCAA at the summit. “I can tackle hard and run hard but also you know still feel beautiful and still bring that into it. It's not like you have to sacrifice that."
Along with gaining support and encouragement for her magazine debut, Maher was recently announced to be in Season 33 of “Dancing with the Stars” with her partner Alan Bersten. Maher being on the dance show will allow her to promote her positive mindset even further, showing that all women’s body types can do all different things.
As the star continues to be an inspirational role model, gathering more well deserved attention and love, Maher said that she never expected her social platform to gain so much attention. She states that she has always strived to be an Olympian, but being a content creator was something that happened along the way. However, Maher is taking this opportunity to be someone who inspires others to think positively of their bodies and their lives.
"I don't think it was really the way that I wanted, to be a content creator, but I just saw the value in it and I put my time and effort into it because I want to be able to play the sport, but I also want to have a comfortable life and be able to live well. I knew that it was a really important avenue to take,” Maher told Olympics.com.
Fans approaching Maher to tell her how her usage of social media has positively impacted their outlook of themselves has only made Maher’s dedication to continue doing so stronger.
"Whenever I have people come up to me … whenever I get that message, it means a lot because I think it's helping me, but it's also good to know it's helping others,” Maher told NCAA.
She has brought the world’s eyes to women’s sports, as well as the unrealistic body standards. Maher has created a safe space that gives other women a voice against these hateful standards and has allowed them to feel perfectly themselves. Maher is a strong athlete, empowering influencer and gorgeous woman who has shown other women that they can be all of those things too.
