Anastasia: I have never understood why Rugby Sevens isn't even more popular here in Canada. The game is so fast, so precise and such an obvious showcase for athletes.

Bianca Farella embodies all that. She is all time world number two in tries scored and her Canadian national team is in a good place nowadays, but they have had to show serious strength in adversity. Just before the Tokyo Olympics. The team underwent a wrenching cultural overhaul, safe sport protocols were brought in, and coaches were replaced. It was a necessary investment in the future. But the historic debut Bronze Medal from Rio 2016 will have to wait for company on the trophy shelf.

Bianca Farella is okay with that. She may be driven to win, but she's also playing the long game.

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It's player's own voice. I'm at Anastasia Bucsis.

How are you doing? Because the Rugby World Sevens World Cup by now just finished about 15 seconds ago and you unfortunately contracted COVID, right, when you were just about to leave?

Bianca Farella: I feel good considering the wild summer we've all had. But it's been a wonderful summer, actually. I graduated with my undergrad in psychology after a long stint of trying to do that and play sports, play rugby. And then I got married a couple of days before that, before I was supposed to leave for the World Cup. And then the day that I was scheduled to leave for the World Cup, I tested positive for COVID. So it's been a wonderful whirlwind of a year for me. But it it's funny, there's just so many great things that happened for me and a lot of things that I wish went a different way. But but overall, overall, good overall, in a good space. And I can't wait for the next few months and see what obstacles the next few months bring for me.

Anastasia:So how was it to watch the team? You actually didn't even get on the plane, you just watched it from home?

Bianca Farella:That's right. I'm kind of grateful that I didn't hop on the plane for for many reasons, ultimately a health and safety issue for other people that I could have exposed. So I was honestly, I was grateful for that, honestly. And the team was fine, the team was healthy and watching them was the hardest part, just knowing that I can't help and be an impact.

And I love the team so much just with everything we've been through over the last two years, such a wonderful programme that it's being developed into. But of course as a result it was so hard to watch. I haven't been this emotionally invested in in our team in a very long time.

Anastasia: And is that just a reflection of obviously the past two years, both culture issues, coaching issues, COVID, compounding everything?

Bianca Farella: Of course. Yeah, absolutely. It's all the all the compounding factors with everything, with the coaching issues, with the safe sport issues, with a career transition that's looming over me. And that has been for a few years now, nd, and it's developed into a wonderful culture and, and I'm grateful for having the right people in the right spaces for that.

Anastasia:Canada went in seeded fifth and lost to Fiji ultimately. So I think you ended sixth, what was the thoughts around how the team did?

Bianca Farella:Sevens is a heartbreaking sport and I think I can just start with that statement. It's tough when you know a team so well and know their strengths, but still end up on the losing end of things like that. And the game is too short. It's such a… all sports are so mentally involved, but sevens, you have to start at the first kick off and you need possession right away or else. And just with the field being so big, honestly, just geographically, if one wrong bounce, then it's seven points the other way. So it's tough knowing what you're capable of and everything that you do day in and day out with the squad and all the wonderful success moments and learnings. It's just tough. It's just tough losing on the world stage.

Anastasia: I mean, everyone gets the Post-Games blues, right? Whether it's an Olympics, the World Cup, even just a world championship. But. Not having the opportunity to play did that…do you think the blues are even worse?

Bianca Farella: I must be someone who dissociates and distracts themselves because I fell into a 'What's next for me? What can I do next? Let's fill my time with something else.' Pattern. So it wasn't challenging in that respect. Maybe because I didn't travel, maybe because I wasn't there, but I definitely stayed in their group convos just to know what was going on. So, no, I was fortunate to not feel not feel the blues in that respect, but definitely did after Rio in Tokyo.

Anastasia:You obviously have your psych degree for saying disassociate. And what was the other D-word?

Bianca Farella:I don't remember. Compartmentalize? I don't know. That isn't starting with a D.

Anastasia: Congratulations. I mean, it took you, what, a decade? Very similar story to me. We are at a conference that introduces a lot of wonderful conversations for athletes of, you know, what's to come in life. Where is that conversation sitting with you right now? I mean, you've said you're kind of in a fluid state.

Bianca Farella: It's wonderful to be here. And it's such a crucial time in my athletic career to be here at a game plan summit, listening to different athletes struggles and successes we can all relate wit each of them, even if our stories don't align exactly.

Did I cry today? Of course I did. Because there are athletes that are here who are world champions that aren't able to succeed at the Olympic Games in which to achieve their goals, their personal goals. And that's heartbreaking. And I'm paying close attention to the ones who are recently transitioned out of sport just to hear that that I'm not alone in how I'm feeling and that it's an okay, it's okay to be in this exploratory phase.

Anastasia:It does make you feel a little less alone. Like so much of what we go through, we think, Oh, has anyone ever felt this way? And yeah, a weekend like this where you can talk to someone like Eric Radford or Gilmore Junio and hear that they're going through very similar things. It is comforting.

Bianca Farella:Yeah, it definitely humanises the Olympians and Paralympians that we that we grow up to see on the TV screen.

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Anastasia:You just said you got married a few weeks ago. Congratulations.

Bianca Farella: Thank you so much.

Anastasia:What role does does he play in your life and being kind of a pillar of, what you're doing right now, rugby?

Bianca Farella: What's wonderful about my partner is that he is also an athlete. So he understood from the get- go my goals and the challenges and sacrifices that I wanted to make, that I chose to make to become who I am today, a two time Olympian and Olympic bronze medallist.

Sound up from CBC Rio Olympic coverage of Rugby tournament: Bianca Farella. We talked about it at the beginning of the game. She's so fast. She's Canada's top scorer so far. Just absolutely thrilled to separate the lead.

Bianca Farella: And that's all I could ever really ask for in a partner. Just having that support and that understanding, knowing where I want to go and knowing my potential has been inherent in his support throughout our whole life together.

Anastasia: Can we just talk about the wedding industry for like ½ a second? It's too expensive, is it not?

Bianca Farella: Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't even know where to begin. Do we start with the flowers? Do we start with? There's just so many things that are just so unnecessary in expressing love between people. And honestly, we were going to elope and then our family caught wind of that and it was shut down.

Anastasia:They're like, No, no, I know I've even had that thought.

Bianca Farella: But it was you know, of course I'm going to finish in saying it was wonderful and what an expression of love. And to be able to share it with people you love in one space was beautiful.

Anastasia: I made a joke about the wedding industry, but he obviously is a huge pillar of support for you. And again, we've hinted at it. Rugby has gone through some tumultuous waters in the lead up to Tokyo. Again, you all spoke about it. I think 55% of all the athletes ever to be in the programme had come out and said there are some serious coaching issues, some serious culture issues. So the entire team comes together. Obviously a big case is brought forward. Team versus NSO, again culture and coaching issues. Do you feel like the adequate response was made?

Bianca Farella:We tried to make sure that our bases were covered, that we were following the rules in a system that wasn't prepared to take on what our team was willing to cry out for help for. I think that with our rugby team bringing forth safe sport issues in Canada, I think that was a starting point for what came after the Tokyo Olympic Games, that several other teams were also crying out for help, saying, you know, listen, we need a structural change here.

We certainly thought that it would create a lot more of a buzz, but that's not always something that we want to talk about and that people want to talk about. And that came as a bit of a surprise for us and. And I'll. I guess I'll only speak for. For myself, but. What we went through was very difficult to go through ahead of an Olympic Games. And I wish there was more support for athletes working to achieve their goals in that in this area.

Anastasia: So what did come out of the report then? Because I agree with you, I thought that there would be more of a media uptick or even just conversation to unfold - from the outside.

Bianca Farella:Yes. The internal investigation took months to complete and undergo, and it was promised to be done after the Olympic Games. The report came out in May. It just wasn't really shared. There was a lot of acknowledgement that people know that there isn't much of a high performance strategy or structure, which was one of the main points. And that's great. It's great that there's something, there's a document now that says that there needs to be some serious restructuring within our NSO.

But now what? Like, what is our board doing? What are the next steps? It'd be great to know. It'd be great for those policies…to know that they're being put in process and I personally don't know what they are. Because I'm an athlete who's trying to find the love of rugby again because I didn't feel so supported 18 months ago.

So I mean, due to several conversations that were very productive, but we were going off a anti-bullying and harassment policy from 2013. That was one of the challenges of being one of the first sports to bring up our safe sport issues. There was no process. There was no guideline where we were. It was kind of being created as we went. And that's just not a safe policy for athletes. I don't want to be in the same room as someone who I've complained against. That's just not proper strategy.

But that paved the way for other teams to learn from what we did and ake better choices off of more informed information.

Anastasia:You weren't happy with how Tokyo unfolded, but knowing that you stood up for what was right and you lived your values, did that reframe any of the results in your mind?

Bianca Farella: Oh, of course, of course. I think a lot of us knew early on that if we were to go down this path, that it would shake up a lot of things. It would shake up our prep. But we couldn't wait. We decided as a group that this was not something that we were willing to drag out for another seven months, or maybe it was ten months at the time. It was just not something that we were willing to deal with, especially now that it had been vocalised. It was not something that we were willing to ignore any longer.

Anastasia: How did that strengthen the team? And also, you know, how did it just add so much stress? Like I can't imagine being a veteran in your position having to manoeuvre those waters leading up to the most important competition every four years.

Bianca Farella:Thank you for acknowledging that. It was it was so powerful being part of the initial conversations of, you know, something doesn't feel right. This can't be what high performance is. And it had unfortunately been normalised in our environment. So after the few initial conversations with a couple of people and then eventually the whole team, it was honestly just shocking just to listen to how many people were struggling and kind of what it felt towards and kind of what we thought the solution was.

Admittedly, I had my reservations at first, but there was a huge there was a huge culture problem. I know that there have been sports who have also raised concern within their own environments as well. But we were the only sport to do it before a major games and that in itself was powerful and brought a lot of voices and concern towards the safe sport issues that we experienced within Canada.

But also we had to deal with the fact that our Olympic dreams were now put on the line, and that was something that we were all okay with. Someone had said to me, Would you put your sister in this environment? And the easy answer obviously was no. Right away. There's no way that I would subject anyone to those experiences. And it only came as a shock to me because I was in a position that the system that was in place actually benefited me. That was a gross realisation that I had to come to terms with.

Anastasia: We started off you said your sport is in so much better of a place now. So what does that look like in comparison to even 18 months ago?

Bianca Farella: Right now, we have the right people in the right spaces and people who look at the athletes as people first and as humans first. Just being asked questions: what do you do on your days off? How do you like to have fun? Just to acknowledge that I'm not just a cog in the system. I am a person who wants to do more than become an Olympian.

I have other dreams and goals. But culture building is no easy feat. It does take a lot of good people in the right spaces. And ultimately sport is a business so that all the merriment of those pieces coming together. It's possible. And it's amazing that. I'm able to witness that. I'm able to witness that culture. After a year and a half of our raising awareness of the safe sport issues we had, and that's part of the reason why I'm still playing.

Anastasia: How much pressure did you feel, though? Because, I mean, you are a veteran and you are a star on the team. That's heavy to have on your shoulders.

Bianca Farella:I was grateful to have my Olympic experience in Rio leading into Tokyo 2020 because I had I felt like that was a good base of what a quote unquote normal games felt like. So when we had all of the extra distractions - that we knew that we wanted to bring forth- because it was very important to us, I guess I only really realised that they were distractions after the fact, just considering how well we did. And that's okay.

I'm slowly coming to terms with that. The pressure wasn't that difficult because we were so united. It was very cool to be part of a media event at the games where we were all there. We all sat down and we each said something about how this was a group effort. This was really something that had to change systematically.

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Anastasia: in May 2022 ( I creeped your Instagram). You said I finally feel that spark and that love back for my sport. When was the exact moment that you realised that?.

Bianca Farella: It must have been the weekend of playing at Langford Sevens. It's such a rare opportunity to play at home and it was cool that my timing had aligned with that and I think that was my second tournament back after taking a break after the games

I had never been so invested in in what we were doing and what we were building. I had never been so proud before and so grateful for my timing that I'm able to witness it. Just the juxtaposition between where we were 18 months ago and where we're headed now is very… it's just a very prideful moment in my career.

Anastasia: How did you keep the momentum and motivation in the in that lead up to May of 2022?

Bianca Farella: Well, after the games, I went back to school to finish my undergrad, so I was sufficiently distracted. I was able to channel my high performance athletic life to a academic life. So I was perhaps dissociating, but it was cool to have a different goal. And I actually did think that I was done playing rugby, but after but the new head coach called me and said, Hey, what's up? How's it going? We've never met before, but. And we both had known of each other, just our rugby paths had never crossed. And a couple conversations later I was like, I don't really know what I want to do, but maybe, maybe I will start training. And he's like, For sure. Yeah, it was just a casual conversation and next thing you know, I found myself in the gym and doing some late training and he was like, How do you feel about potentially playing again? And I was like, I don't know, let's see. So I was grateful for that space as well, just to be able to take it tournament by tournament and see where I'm at.

Anastasia: The speed. Is that your secret weapon? You are so fast.

Bianca Farella: Thank you. After ten years of training. I hope so.

Anastasia: No, really. On YouTube here you are getting tackled and then, you know, you're up and running at 30 K an hour. You started in fifteens. You moved to sevens. Was that just because speed was really innate in you?

Bianca Farella:Yeah. I was definitely naturally fast growing up and sevens had the Olympic allure as well and yeah just because I was so fast with sevens it was a lot more appealing. Although I did grow up playing fifteens and there's just an inherent love for fifteens because that's where most of us start playing.

But yeah, I have, yeah, speed and power and it's just such a chaotic sport, but also very meticulous. It's an interesting one.

Anastasia: You said : you just got to work on your weaknesses until those become strengths. That's why you're a better athlete than I am, because I'm like, Hell no, I'm just going to work on my strengths. Like I ain't doing anything that I'm not good at. What are some things that you don't like working on?

Bianca Farella: There are definitely parts of the game that I enjoy much more than others, like I'm definitely an offensive player. I like defence because it turns into offence and those successes are motivating. But I mean I'd rather not run into someone straight on, you know what I mean?

Anastasia:So yeah, I mean again, like speedskater, right? Even when I play hockey, I'm like, can you just not come anywhere near me? Let me just lose the puck on my own? I don't like physicality and I have been tackled once in rugby and it was for the camera and I could never, ever do this. I can never do this sport. I'm too much of a wimp. How did you get into it? And when you're not super motivated, I mean, are you extra like, I don't want to be tackled by this person right now.

Bianca Farella: So I started playing rugby in high school. Good friend of mine at the time, Her family was from New Zealand, so she knew all about the sport of rugby and introduced it to me. So that was just a little season in each high school year and I quickly found my spot on the wing because I was always naturally so fast. But I would always too physical for soccer and too physical for basketball.

So I fell right into rugby. It was glorious. And I was climbing the ranks provincially quicker in rugby than I was in basketball, which was my, you know, another passion of mine. I think that's what athletes have… there's just a motivation to follow your strengths and strengthen those strengths, to become an expert. When the motivation dips you know, it's also rugby. So you kind of also have to stand up. Like you have to be physical and kind of protect yourself. But I think all that's natural. There's ebbs and flows in everything that we that we go through. And we're not always going to wake up on the right side of the bed.

Anastasia: You're second in the world for tries. 155?

Bianca Farella: I don't know what it's at right now, but I remember my 150th try.

Anastasia:155 and counting. What do you attribute that success to? When you become number one, you're going to be the Christine Sinclair of Rugby.

Bianca Farella:What a legend, the goat. I have been playing for a long time and I started off on the wings and those are typically the try scoring machines. But sevens is such a team sport. You need everyone on your team to be doing the right job at the same time to set people like me up to score. But I'm not the only one out there. And so the 150 plus tries are great, but it's not just me out there.

Anastasia: I feel like our rugby sevens team is like the Spice Girls, though all of you have fantastic personalities, huge personalities. And so I ask this very naively, but have we found the correct way to market the rugby sevens team? Like, you know, I mentioned Christine Sinclair and of course soccer is the world's game, but rugby is like right there with it. I feel like I should know every single name on your team.

Bianca Farella: And I 100% agree with you. It's such a fast paced sport. It's so exciting, it's wild. There's a reason why people show up to party at Vancouver Sevens, where the women will be showcased for the first time this upcoming season. And it's about time, you know, it's such a fun sport. And you're right, it should be marketed differently.

Anastasia: So what do we need to do to get there?

Bianca Farella: Invest in women's sports!

That's the headline answer. We need just as many series stops as the men's programme, if not more. But we're striving for equality right now. We need exposure. People are watching us and we are doing so, so well with a bronze medal at the Olympic Games that propelled. Young athletes to start playing the sport in Canada. Actually, even before that, in 2013, Canada won a silver medal at the World Cup at the Rugby Sevens World Cup. It starts with exposure. It starts with young athletes seeing us on the podium, seeing us, loving what we do and fighting for what's right.

Anastasia: You're not retiring anytime soon, but you do have that psych degree. Would you ever like to marry psychology and sport. Would you ever want to be in sports psych?

Bianca Farella: I'd love to incorporate sports psych in something that I do because I've lived it and I've been inside my own head and understand how I operate, but also the sports environment and how it can be better for athletes mentally. But there are just so many things out there that I'm so excited to explore. And I'm grateful to be here because there are so many successful people in the room that I can turn to and grow the network and try to figure out what's out there because there are so many cool avenues that can incorporate sport and otherwise.

Anastasia: And obviously just coming off a wedding to wedding industry has got a lot of ways to make money.

Bianca Farella: yhere's probably a wedding sport overlap in there somewhere.

Anastasia:You can be a wedding sports psychologist. I'll be hiring you, girl.

Bianca Farella: Oh my God. That is Yeah. Planning, I guess?

Anastasia: I'm just grateful to hear your story. And I'm grateful to hear that you're just, like, connected with athletes.

Bianca Farella:It's been. It's so wonderful hanging around with, you know, like minded people and successful athletes who are just experts in their craft.

Anastasia:Cheers. Thanks so much for chatting.

Bianca Farella:Of course.

Anastasia: Peace.

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Bianca and I met up in King Township, north of Toronto here in the GTA for the game plan summit.

Players own Voice podcast is a CBC sports production. We're available on CBC Listen and everywhere else you get your podcasts.

you want to socialise. Hit me up. I'm @anastasure and we are #playersownvoice Olivia Pasquarelli edits our audio. Adam Blinov wrote our theme music. David Giddens is our producer. Thanks for listening.

Sorry, I've got to go plan a wedding.