Ilona Maher: US rugby star joins the UK’s Bristol Bears | US News

US rugby star Ilona Maher is transferring to the UK to affix the Bristol Bears.

The rugby sevens participant, who boasts 3.3 million followers on TikTok and 4.6 million on Instagram, introduced her transfer to the Premiership Ladies’s Rugby league on Monday in a video filmed in Ashton Gate Stadium, the house of the Bears.

“I am trying ahead to calling Bristol dwelling as we gear up for the Rugby World Cup 2025 performed right here in England,” Maher mentioned.

She went on to joke concerning the chilly climate and if she might “get a roast” after recording the video, saying it was a giant motive she was there.

The 28-year-old shot to fame through the 2021 Tokyo Olympics when she posted common movies on social media from the Olympic Village because the COVID pandemic restricted followers and members of the family from in-person spectating.

Maher continued filming amusing content material through the Paris video games over the summer time, the place she gained a bronze, serving to the ladies’s rugby sevens workforce win the US its first rugby medal in 100 years, albeit with a 92 12 months hiatus for the game on the Olympics.

Her social media presence has meant she is probably the most adopted rugby participant on-line on this planet.

By comparability, France star Antoine Dupont, who some think about the best males’s rugby union participant ever and is among the many most well-known present gamers within the males’s sport, solely has round 1.1 million Insta followers and 171,000 X followers.

Bristol Bears head coach Dave Ward described Maher as “one of many largest names in ladies’s sport” who “will add actual worth” to the West Nation workforce.

“Her potential ball in hand will give our assault a brand new dimension and her need to star within the Rugby World Cup in England subsequent summer time is a big driving pressure for her to realize nice issues at Bears,” he mentioned.

“Her profile as an athlete to encourage the subsequent technology aligns precisely with ours as a membership and we will solely applaud the work she has and can do for the ladies’s sport.”

The Bears mentioned Maher has already arrived in Bristol to start coaching however will go dwelling to the States for Christmas earlier than returning to the UK within the new 12 months.

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The Ladies’s Rugby World Cup is ready to happen throughout the UK from August subsequent 12 months.

Maher’s transfer to the UK comes after she got here runner-up in Dancing With The Stars – the US model of Strictly Come Dancing – which ended final week.

She instructed ABC’s Good Morning America that she appeared on the truth dancing present to show “rugby gamers are multidimensional”.