Sports Illustrated/Ben Watts
Ilona Maher for Sports Illustrated.
Maher, who led Team USA to its first Olympic bronze medal in rugby sevens at the Paris Games earlier this summer, also spoke with sI about the salary differences between male and female rugby players.
“(Men) can play rugby and get paid millions of dollars, while we get paid minimum wage and it’s not a career for us,” she says. “I have teammates who are now going into their careers, while these guys are down there playing rugby it (for them).”
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Maher, who has over 2 million followers on TikTok, says her viral online persona is authentic.
“It’s very spontaneous. It’s like my teammates say I tell my jokes twice – once to them and then once to the world, so it’s just chatter,” she told PEOPLE on July 31 at the Team USA house in Paris. “The way I am online is the way I am in real life. (My teammates) keep me grounded, they keep me sane.”
“They tell me what is right and what is wrong, so they are just the best,” she said of her teammates.
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