Bronze Medal Boost: How USA Olympic Success Transformed Women’s Rugby at the U
By Sean Stetson
he rugby pitch at the University of Utah buzzed with activity as Maddie Bloodworth watched her team practice, a sight that would have seemed impossible less than a year ago. Last spring, the women's rugby club struggled to gather enough players for a proper match, with only nine dedicated members.
Today, 36 players – a 300% surge over the previous roster – regularly take to the field to run drills, pass the oval ball and tackle with newfound enthusiasm. The dramatic turnaround comes in the wake of Team USA's bronze medal performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics, part of a nationwide trend that has seen women's rugby participation soar.
Across the country, USA Club rugby programs have reported similar growth patterns, with national registration rates of new players increasing by 11% and of that women's club rugby members increasing by nearly 45% since the Olympics, according to Your Scrumhalf Connection (YSCRugby). Boston University also reported a 166% increase in their women’s rugby club with 40 new members, the rising trend in the sports popularity.
Dubbed “The Ilona Maher Effect” for the American rugby player and bronze-medalist Olympian who has amassed nearly 8.5 million followers on TikTok and Instagram, this phenomenon represents more than just a famous athlete promoting her sport. It has sparked a broader movement within women's athletics, said Maddie Bloodworth, the U’s club president.
“People saw rugby as a more approachable sport,” said Bloodworth, who has been the club’s president since 2022. “We recruited a lot more students who haven't been athletic in the past, and I like to think that those groups really found a sense of community in our team, and Ilona Maher was the figurehead who pioneered that idea.”
Bloodworth added that Maher's humor and often vulnerable messages about body image and female strength resonated with audiences during and after the Olympics, particularly women who felt excluded from traditional athletic spaces. By challenging conventional expectations about femininity and athleticism, she said, Maher has created new pathways into sports like rugby.
“[She promoted] the idea that you didn't have to look or behave a certain kind of way to prosper in athletics,” said Bloodworth, a junior studying criminology.
From Struggle to Success
Bloodworth took the club’s helm as president two years into the COVID-19 pandemic and struggled to get the club off the ground and onto the pitch, facing recruitment challenges and concerns about the sport's physical nature.
“We didn't have enough players for a side on the field, and we had a really difficult time … convincing people to give rugby a try,” Bloodworth said. “A lot of the girls I talked to who were … hesitant because of the potential harm, the potential for injury, [or] because they thought it was unladylike.”
Everything changed after the Paris Olympics. Bloodworth remembers the weeks following Team USA's bronze medal performance and the subsequent boost in interest.
“We had so many people reaching out to our club [wanting to give] it a try,” she said. “Our Instagram blew up …it was thrilling.”
The club saw quadruple growth in just one semester, Bloodworth said, expanding from nine members in spring 2024 to 36 players by fall.
Bloodworth said she believes Maher’s social media presence played a crucial role in this transformation. Maher’s Instagram following saw a post-Games boost, increasing by 257% – from 580,000 to more than 2 million followers – in less than three months after the Olympics ended in late July.
New Players, New Perspectives
Rosa De Lima, a freshman studying biology, said she found Maher’s message empowering, which inspired her to join the women’s rugby club at the U. De Lima said videos of Maher rushing toward the goal and strong-arming competitors to the ground started appearing in her Instagram reels during the Olympics.
She was hooked.
“I just thought she was the coolest person ever,” De Lima said. “The way that she talked about rugby – and how it benefited her health and how positive and inviting she was about it – made me want to try it out.”
Maher’s influence has transcended beyond rugby, continually finding a way to infiltrate practice at the U, whether it’s about Maher’s dance moves from Dancing with the Stars, being in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, or changing the landscape of rugby overseas.
“Ilona comes up at least once a practice,” added De Lima. “I know people on the team just really love her and strive to become a better player because of her inspiration.”
Growing Pains and Future Plans
Now serving as the club’s fundraising coordinator, De Lima said she is working to address financial challenges as the program grows. While player interest has surged, the club is facing logistical and financial challenges like limited resources for travel, uniforms and equipment.
“We had to share jerseys at games, and we had to drive separately hours away to away games,” De Lima said, who previously ran fundraisers for her high school in Orem, Ut.. “My goal in the beginning was to just make us more of an established team.”
The club partnered with Raising Canes’ South Salt Lake location on March 26 for a fundraising event that brought in $200. De Lima said her next goal is to raise enough money to send the team to Los Angeles next year for the Rugby Sevens tournament, an exhibition that includes teams from all over the world with varying levels of competitive play.
The women's rugby club spring season, which ended in mid-April, took the team on the road to the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Boise State in Idaho, and Utah State in Logan. With the season now over, players like freshman Carmen Johnson, an International Studies major, are continuing a newfound love of rugby after returning home.
“I joined after the Olympics, and I ended up really falling in love with it,” Johnson said. “I didn’t play in high school, and now I am planning on playing in a women’s league when I go back home to St. Louis [over the summer]. I am really excited to get better and meet new people.”
The growth at Utah reflects broader trends across the state for rugby generally. Utah Little Rugby, a youth league for boys and girls ages 6 through 14, experienced a 40% expansion in 2024, according to theUtah Warriors, a local men’s professional rugby club. At the high school level, Utah Youth Rugby recently merged with Utah Little Rugby and now includes more than 2,500 registered athletes.
The continuing community of rugby at the U has had lasting impacts on everyone that has been involved, said Siray Fleck, a junior kinesiology major and a lifelong sports enthusiast. Fleck said she has been with the club since the start and enjoyed watching the club grow.
“It's been awesome,” she said. “Sometimes I don't want to come, I don't want to work out, but just knowing that all these girls will be there holding that space just makes me want to keep playing, and keep coming. I want other girls to be able to have that same experience.”