Olympics
Within seconds of meeting Olivia Maher, elder sister of and manager to Ilona, one of the most famous rugby players in the world, she pulls a loose hair from my coat before introducing me to the youngest Maher sister, Adrianna.
It is a small gesture which instantly puts me at ease; a signal that the Mahers are women who take the time to invest in supporting women. But we already knew that.
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Olivia and Adrianna are searching for their seats at Kingsholm, a stadium in Gloucester, England. It has been renamed ‘Queensholm’ for the day because Gloucester-Hartpury’s women’s team are facing Bristol Bears, the 15-a-side rugby union side Ilona joined in January, for a place in the Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) final.
The Maher sisters shuffle along to offer me a seat. That is a family ethos the two sisters seemed to have inherited from Ilona, their middle sister who has, from scratch, built an 8.4million following across social media for taking pride in herself, posting honestly and encouraging others to do the same. Ilona’s body-positive messages have resonated deeply with millions of girls and women. So too has her silliness.
“She influences us,” Olivia, 30, says before pausing to encourage her younger sister to speak.
“She is very authentically herself and she always pushes Olivia and I to be that way,” says Adrianna, 25.
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U.S. superstar Ilona Maher and her impact in England: ‘She wants to lift the whole sport with her’
“Not that we are not (authentically ourselves),” interrupts Olivia, founder of the ‘girl dinner’ trend which boomed on social media in 2023. “But to post as we are.”
“I’ve had a journey of showing who I am to my family but then being more restrained in public,” adds Adrianna, “and Ilona is like: ‘Why would you do that to yourself? Just be who you are!’”
“I now take such joy in putting myself out there because the weirder you are, the more people that can relate to you,” says Olivia. “That’s how I came up with girl dinner. Ilona was in the back of my head going: ‘Just post it’ and it was the first time I’d posted something that was not edited or polished. I looked a mess and I posted it, and now I get to do what I love in food content and travel the world watching rugby.”
“I don’t know if I’d call us famous. We call ourselves nepo sisters,” Adrianna laughs.
“Professional nepo sisters,” adds Olivia. “We get to be part of it all and it is so fun. It is such a sister business.”
Last year, after winning rugby sevens bronze for the United States at the Paris Olympic Games, Ilona featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and finished as runner-up in season 33 of U.S. reality TV show Dancing With The Stars (DWTS). Her sisters grew up watching the show in what they call the “idyllic, nature-filled” Burlington, Vermont, where their Dutch mother Mieneke and American father Michael still live.
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It is they who instilled a love of sports in their daughters. Every school year, each daughter was required to take up sport after Mieneke and Michael had read that girls who play sports are more likely to grow up to be leaders.
Ilona, who is based in San Diego, with Olivia a two-hour drive away in Los Angeles, was named on Forbes 30 under 30 Sports List for 2025. She has since been inundated with fan mail, interview requests, event invitations and prospective endorsement deals. On Friday, she was announced as an Adidas athlete and will “be the face of the launch for a brand-new women’s rugby boot later this year.”
The Maher sisters brought on the help of Range Sports agent Rheann Engelke while Olivia prefers the job title of “full-time sister” than manager. The full-time part feels like an understatement.
“It is full on,” Olivia says. “There’s no real breaks but that’s OK because I love it. This is my dream job.”
Adrianna has taken a step back from what has become the family business to concentrate on her own career. She lives in New York City and works in human rights. Like all good sisters, Adrianna acts as a consultant to the family, there to give her opinion or advice on various projects and ideas.
Late last year, Adrianna was walking through an airport and her sister Ilona flashed up on the screens as a rerun of DWTS was being aired. Another surreal moment she recalls is when she was walking through Manhattan with a friend and spotted herself and her older sisters on the cover of Cherry Bombe magazine, a publication which celebrates women and creatives in the world of food and drink.
Both sisters say they are “the biggest cheerleaders” when watching Ilona play. When she goes into a heavy challenge early into the game, Olivia shouts: “Careful with my girl, please!”
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“We are obnoxious cheerleaders,” says Adrianna, wearing a Bristol Bears cap. “We’re loud.”
“We’ve toned it down a little bit,” Olivia adds. “When she is playing for USA, we are obnoxious but over here, we are trying to be a bit more respectful but still very excited.”
The family have embraced the rugby community in England and it has embraced them. They join in with chants, occasionally bobbing their heads from side to side to contend with a restricted view caused by a metal pillar. “Way to work,” Olivia shouts as Ilona makes a big tackle and helps recover the ball.
For a lot of the 6,700 fans in attendance, Ilona is the draw, as has been the case since she temporarily relocated to the country. Since her debut in January, thousands have turned out to watch her eight rugby matches, including 9,000-plus record-breaking attendance for a standalone PWR game in her first outing against Exeter Chiefs.
Bristol make a fast start against Gloucester-Hartpury, scoring two tries, and then Ilona scores her fifth try for the club before being replaced in the second half.
But the Fruitella sweets which are being handed out cannot cover the bitter taste of defeat which eventually arrives as Gloucester, a team vying for a record third consecutive PWR title, power their way to the final with a 36-20 victory.
After the full-time whistle blows, Olivia and Adrianna weave through the scrum of fans already lining the side of the pitch, most of them waiting for their sister, so they can embrace her.
“I want to get through everyone here, so I’m not going to sign anything. I’m just gonna wave,” Ilona, who has been so generous with her time after every game, says, before downing her own rules and being drawn in for selfies. Her sisters follow her around the pitch, then Olivia walks ahead of Ilona and instructs fans to get their cameras ready.
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Adrianna admits she does find it weird when people recognise her and says she is still grappling with her sister’s level of fame. “It’s my sister; she’s just a normal person,” she tells one fan.
She is just a normal person — and that is exactly why so many people flock to her.
“My sisters and my family are the reason I do a lot of it,” Ilona says. “They will support me no matter what… I also want to win for them because they’re proud of me and want to see me succeed, but they love me if I don’t succeed.”
“Well…” Olivia says, smirking after Bristol’s defeat.
That’s sisters for you.
(Top photo: Adrianna, Olivia and Ilona Maher; Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)
Caoimhe O’Neill is a Staff Writer for The Athletic who spent her first three years here covering Liverpool’s men’s, women’s and academy teams. Since moving to London in summer 2023, Caoimhe now covers the Premier League and Women’s Super League more broadly. Before joining The Athletic, the University of Liverpool graduate worked as a Senior Football Writer at the Liverpool Echo. Follow Caoimhe on Twitter @CaoimheSport
