One of the small perks of being an Olympic athlete—besides the thousands of inevitable TikTok followers—is rubbing shoulders with celebrities you've always admired. 

That seems to have been the

One of the small perks of being an Olympic athlete—besides the thousands of inevitable TikTok followers—is rubbing shoulders with celebrities you've always admired. 

That seems to have been the case for U.S. rugby player Ilona Maher. She has not only earned 800,000 TikTok fans that watched her compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but she also scored a coveted shoutout from none other than Jennifer Lopez.

"That was just cool," Ilona, 24, tells E! News in an exclusive interview. "We were like, 'Maybe we should just make a fun video of her, but she'll probably never see it, but it will be just fun.' We made this video, and then I woke up seeing that she'd seen it."

What was her reaction to getting noticed by one half of Bennifer? "I was like, 'That's awesome, because anyone can use—probably even J.Lo goes through some hard times of self-doubt, so let me just show her I think she is absolutely amazing,'" Ilona gushes. "So, I am really happy that she saw that."