THOMAS Kris

General
MISSING RIO
A right leg injury forced her to withdraw from the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. "It was devastating and kind of hard to put into words. It was really difficult to train for something for all that time and not reach the end goal. Watching my teammates reach their Olympic goals was a constant battle between being happy for them and trying not to feel sorry for myself. Injuries happen. It's rugby. But, I had to move on, keep training and hope for the best in the future." (Instagram profile, 05 Aug 2016; rugby.pennmutual.com, 07 Dec 2017)

BUILDING MOMENTUM
She admits to having a slow start in her rugby career because she was working multiple jobs and had difficulty balancing work with training. "When I first started playing rugby, I didn't take it very seriously. We only trained twice a week because it was a club sport. I also worked three jobs so I struggled to make it to practice. It wasn't until I was invited to try out for the Collegiate All-American Team that I started training as if playing rugby was a goal of mine beyond my college club. My road to making the national team was pretty seamless once I started putting in the additional work outside of practice and focusing on the skills the coaches said I needed to enhance." (sdvoyager.com, 06 Jan 2020)