Anastasia: Here's the elevator pitch on Justina Di Stasio.

She is the greatest wrestler that Canadians have not YET seen at the Olympics.

That is no knock on the 74 kilo queen.

Di Stasio's challenge is- to earn her spot, she had to get through her Gold medal winning teammate, Erica Wiebe.

Not an enviable situation, but Di Stasio is not complaining.

In fact- the wrestler / coach / teacher wouldn't change a thing.

She's aiming for Paris 2024 and any past setbacks are only making her more dangerous for future opponents.

Thanks so much for sitting down with me. Hey, a little birdie told me that you were really obsessed with "Love is Blind."

Justina Di Stasio: Yes. Yes. I was so upset the other day when I couldn't watch it. I went to go meet my friend's brand new baby, and then it was 5:00, and I'm like, This has been great. I have to go home and watch "Love is Blind" now and then it (the cable connection?) didn't work.

Anastasia: Bye baby! got to go watch Reality TV Show. Are you a big reality show watcher?

Justina Di Stasio: No, I try not to like, get into it too much because I will become obsessed with it. So. But we watched it last night.

Anastasia: And I heard there was big drama.

Justina Di Stasio: It was a lot.

Anastasia: it was a lot. I'm not going to spoil it but yeah, there was a lot of drama on reality T.V. Spoiler alert! What do you watch, though, before you compete? What gets you into the proper mindset?

Justina Di Stasio: I'll put on Brooklyn Nine-Nine or New Girl or… I used to watch Friends all the time. Like way back before Netflix was. I had it all on every DVD. So I've always just had, like, my comfort shows to fall asleep to.

Anastasia: Yeah, my comfort movie is Romi and Michelle's high school reunion. I watch that 60 million times over. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah… Wrestling is so wild in the sense that it's like you win and you're in and you lose and you're done. It's just so black and white that way. How do you make peace with that now?

Justina Di Stasio: I mean, now that I'm older and I'm like a bit more, I guess, like tactical, you obviously, in my mind, I'm like every first match, I'm like we're going to win the first match because that's like the day before. I only know my first draw. So I like, let myself think only that first match, and then the rest of the time you have to have that 24 hours or whatever to prepare. Then you have to do it quick because it's going to come up in like the next 20 minutes or minimum 20 minutes between each match.

And obviously you want to win, each one, you get yourself refocused. If it was an easy match, if it was a hard match. You still got to be ready to go and have like a really good match right away. If you win, obviously you just keep doing that process. If you lose, you have to take a moment to like get that "I lost" feeling out and then you have to watch the person who beat you. And if they keep winning until the final, if they make it to the final, you're pulled back in to the repechage.

So those I'd say I've been getting third place fairly consistently at tournaments or fifth place. So that's been a very new learning experience of like having that moment to like get all those like negative, why do I mess this up and then having it come back into that? Like now we're going to go do it again. It's good for me, I think, to like, learn that process. But I obviously would prefer to be like, and I won and I won and I won and now we're in the final. That'd be better.

Anastasia: So when you're watching, though, like in the repechage, as you said, you just want to win, of course, every single match. But like, how do you get yourself back into go mode after you've lost? I don't think I'd be very good at that.

Justina Di Stasio: Well, I mean, I don't… I've lost and I know that girl lost, but for some reason I just take it. I'm like, Well, she just lost too, so I want it more than her now. Like usually when you're waiting a little bit, I've had it where I've won the first match lose the second one. That's the only way I've had been pulled back in the repechage. So I'm like, I had a bit more time to like, prepare for this. I have been ready to come back in a bit longer than her, where she just lost and now we're going to wrestle sooner.

Whatever my routine is, I'd go back to my normal routine as if the day is just starting because it is like your second chance. Like you're just starting the tournament again at the backside. And I try and approach it as normal as I can, but you definitely are like, okay, second chance. Let's like, let's not let this tournament go to waste. Let's get on the mat as much as possible, just so we have like more learning opportunities because every tournament leading to like, besides like nationals world championships- I've never been to Olympics- but I must assume that I'm hopefully going to bring that approach to it. Those are like the ones where it's like, Let's go, let's execute, let's be as close to perfect as possible. And then the other ones are like, Let's get as much mat time as possible so we can like work on things and learn.

Anastasia: 100% Okay, So you touched upon it and I'm not blowing smoke, you're one of the greatest wrestlers to come out of this country.

Justina Di Stasio: Thanks that is so sweet!

Anastasia: And you've actually you've never wrestled at the Olympics.

Justina Di Stasio: No.

Anastasia: Is that like, does that take up space in your brain or where is that in your horizons right now?

Justina Di Stasio: The first time I lost Olympic trials, 2016, Erica went and won. So I was like, as much as I wanted to go there, I was like, okay, I take some comfort in that. Like you just lost to the best person in the world. And then the second time we got hit by a pandemic right after, and I was like, I don't know if I would have been in the Mindspace to like, train through that. I was going through a lot of like mental health stuff, which like losing Olympic trials. I feel like that like brings a lot of that up. But also I like, grew in other ways. I would have loved to have the Olympics but was forced to grow in other ways every time you lose Olympic trials.

So this time it's like a big motivation to come back. I like took a huge break during COVID, went back, got my teaching degree, came back into wrestling. So far, everything's been trending in the right direction. I've done, I've done every games. I've won everything that I've had the chance to compete at. That's the last thing on my bucket list. But I really am trying to approach that like, do my best and it'll take me there. And if it doesn't happen, I don't want it to discredit my career. But I do. I want to go to the Olympics so badly, but like I'm approaching it with as much of a level head as someone who's never gone to the Olympics can try to approach it with. Yeah. Mm.

Anastasia: Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that you were struggling with your mental health. I certainly hope that you're in a better place.

Justina Di Stasio: Oh, so much better. Yeah. Wrestling Canada, everyone was, like, so supportive. We've definitely, we're good.

Anastasia: Mm. Fantastic. Okay, I want to talk about Erica, but first and foremost, I mean, you can wrestle at 72, 74, 76 kilos. I mean, that's a huge weight variance. How do you do that and why do you do that for folks that perhaps aren't up to speed with wrestling?

Justina Di Stasio: So, yeah, the Olympic weight right now is 76 kilos. It switched in 2012, kept moving around because wrestling was almost taken out of the Olympics and then put back in with a lot of 'let's include women way more'. So it was a scary moment. But in the end it ended up helping women's wrestling a ton for just like equal chances to perform.

They switched it to 75kg that year on the World Team I wrestled 75. Then when I wrestle 72, it's because I didn't make the Olympic weight. Then you have you have six Olympic weights and four non-Olympic weights. I'd go down to 72, which actually at the time was like very nice because I'm I naturally weigh when I'm training hard 74 kilos. And then last year at Worlds, like the second day I'm weighing and I'm 74.5 wrestling 76 kilos and it's like we got to really commit to being like, like you want to be 80 kilos if you're wrestling 76.

So we've worked really, really hard. And my nutritionist? What a brain, my like strength coach making me do all the right ways too. And my wrestling coach, telling me that like we are taking the stuff off of cardio,we're going to get it in the gym. I don't run anymore just to, like, help keep weight on my body, keep my body healthier. As much as it's a weight class sport and like everyone's losing weight, gaining weight is so, so hard. It's like it's own unique experience because your team-mates are all like cutting their weight and whatnot.

So now I've been able to get myself up to almost 79 and a half. Like that's the max I've been able to get to. And I do my like little cut, which my team-mates can like kind of laugh. They're like, Oh, you're cutting weight. I'm like, Yeah, this is hard. But it's just like, it's a new experience for me. So it's a lot of relying on people smarter than me to help me do it like nutritionists. We've been really lucky. Wrestling Canada has. I worked with one for many years and now I'm working with another one and I feel like the pressure's not on me. I just ask, what do I do? And they go, you do this, and then we do it and it works. Yeah.

Anastasia: How crappy is it to cut weight? Because I just envision you wearing, like, a garbage bag sitting in a sauna. That's not fun!

Justina Di Stasio: Yeah, I. I've always been lucky to wrestle what I weigh. But then, when I was younger, switching, they switched it and it went from 72, and then they went 75 or 69kgs. And at the time I was so young that I was like, Well, I don't want to be a big girl. Not thinking about my wrestling, just thinking about like my appearance. So I spent like two years trying to cut to 69 kilos and it was horrible because I didn't know how to do it.

I tried doing it on my own, like those sauna suits, like sweaty, sweaty workouts, not eating. I was a horrible weight cutter. So for me to enjoy wrestling, I was like, We're going to wrestle what we weigh.

And it just started going up from there. My wrestling improved because I'm no longer spending, like going to practice, going on my lift and then being like, Now we need to like, worry about what we're eating and what we weigh to being like… Let's just wrestle and do the fun stuff.

So for me, it's really good. My team-mates who do cut weight, the mental toughness that takes? I don't have that part. So I don't do it. I put my mental toughness into other parts of wrestling.

Anastasia: I'll just quickly say one time I accidentally got dehydrated on a bike camp and it was 35c above whatever, and my mood swings were unbelievable. And our sport, our sport masseuse at the time was an ex wrestler and he was like, "Honey, you're dehydrated. Like, trust me, as someone who was a wrestler and had to cut weight". The physiology of it is so painful. I felt like I was losing myself, even just from being a little bit dehydrated.

Justina Di Stasio: I'm a little moody to begin with, so like wrestling, cutting weight, no one would want to be around that.

[music]

Anastasia: I kind of see wrestling in Canada, almost like curling in Canada in the sense that you can be one of the greatest in the world and unfortunately not make the international team because we have people like Erica Wiebe who you mentioned and you've had to wrestle off with. Would you like to see anything change with that structure?

Justina Di Stasio: So we're not the only country like that. Like you have people right now. The heavyweight weight class in the USA is like so deep. Japan, like their whole country so deep. So it's give and take. It's like, now if we could send two people from certain countries, would you have those people going one-two? What if at world championships, would it push other countries back in growing the sport globally if now it's like, here's four Japanese. (If you let four people in) four Japanese girls placing top five, what happens to the other countries? Would it diminish it or would it grow it?

Personally, I think it pushed me because just to get out of Canada you had to be world class and it sucked every time I didn't win, but I don't think I would have had to get as good as I did or as tough as I did or grow as much outside of wrestling to deal with setbacks if that didn't happen.

So it's like you always…obviously everyone wants to be the number one. But looking back, I don't think I would have the chance to be where I am now if I didn't go through that for like eight years before kind of thing.

Anastasia: So it definitely gives you a brilliant perspective. I feel like wrestling, it's an individual sport, but it is so difficult that you need to rely on Teammates

Justina Di Stasio Yeah

Anastasia: And you kind of switch it up though. Like you wrestle with boys, correct?

Justina Di Stasio: Yes.

Anastasia: If you beat, you know, obviously very, very competitive boys, how do they take that?

Justina Di Stasio: The boys who I go with, they're very technical. So wrestling is like, I love it. But as good as I'm going to be, as strong as I'm going to be, some of my best partners are high school, 16, 17 year old boys. They've been wrestling, because I didn't start, really learning it until I was 17. So they might have been wrestling for as long as me if they started when they were little kids… just before they, get their man strength, and then they come to university, and I just watch, like for years I've watched my partners and I'm like: You're hitting puberty you're about to leave. You're going to be too strong, you're going to be a man.

But I think it works both ways. They are faster than me, they're suddenly stronger than me, their cardio just goes to that next level. Their physiology or whatever, biology, like, I won't… They're going to be there. Then they can work on their technique. So when they take their strength away and they work on their technique, and I'm wrestling live and they're working on their technique? It still helps each other. So that part is very, very team oriented. And like certain positions, If I stick my arm on a girl, I know I'm safe. I can like muscle it. If I stick my arm on a boy and he wants to go, use his full strength, I will get hurt. So it's very cooperative. But yeah, the guys in my room, they're so they're so nice. And the girls in my room, too. Like, I really like the wrestling room I'm in.

Anastasia: Do you ever get scared? I'm just, even listening to you. I'm like, Ooh, I like my personal space way too much!

Justina Di Stasio: I like, I love wrestling. And I've grown up playing a ton of sports and I grew up with two siblings. I'm very much I don't like being alone. So maybe that part of, like, no personal space. I'm like, Oh, this is nice.

Anastasia: And I'm an only child. So, this is a therapy session!

Justina Di Stasio: You're like, I want my space! Mmm hmm.

Anastasia: So you said you really only got to kind of start learning, quote unquote, wrestling at 17, but you started in around 13, right?

Justina Di Stasio: Yeah. So I found wrestling in grade six. My middle school had a little team you would do, like takedown. It was the perfect way to get a kid to try it without scaring them away. You come in, you learn like how to, like, be close, touch, move bodies, fall down, and you would have takedown tournaments. It was fun to be with my friends, but I really I didn't enjoy the sport.

I didn't do it in grade seven and in grade eight, I was like, I want to win athlete of the year. I joined every sport, I joined things like rugby and I joined every track event, shotput, everything. And then there was a teacher at a different middle school, went to my high school and he's actually the whole reason I wrestle, like he's the greatest little guy. His name is [unclear] Tam. Maybe he'll hear this, but he would find me in the hallways and be like, You're joining the wrestling team. I'm like, I don't really like it because I was I love soccer. I grew up playing whatever the most competitive community league was. And I was like, I'm gonna be a soccer star. I was never going to be a soccer star, but I wanted to be. And probably a little rude. I was like, No, I'm not joining wrestling.

And then I went because I am a bit of a people pleaser and I was like, okay, I'll go and I'll try it. And he just met me where I was at: Come in. Okay, go to go to your other practices, whatever. And he would sign me up for like camps and team B.C. and talk to my parents. Like he saw that I was athletic, but he knew I didn't love wrestling. So I wrestled for two or three months a year from grade nine to grade 11, and then grade 12 I broke my foot. So I didn't really wrestle.

I just walked onto the SFU wrestling team because I didn't get a soccer scholarship because this coach, Mr. Tam, like, was like, okay, like you got to keep wrestling. And I did a few things like I made team B.C. and I'd go to stuff, but I loved it for the social side, the wrestling. I was like, this is so hard. I don't know if I love this yet. So it was a very slow process of falling in love with the sport. But once I got to university, it all flipped and I was like, this is my life. This is what I want to do.

Anastasia: What position did you play in soccer, just quickly?

Justina Di Stasio: Everywhere. But I remember I'd play outside Left Mid because you had to run back and forth constantly. And I cannot run like that anymore. Like I was a skinny little kid with long arms and legs. And now if you got me to run for more than 20 minutes, it would not happen.

Anastasia: No, I couldn't run for 20 seconds. So. Yeah. But when you were young and please correct me if this is a misconception, some folks, I would think, just assume that wrestling is a very masculine sport. Were there other younger girls and women that were eager to try it?

Justina Di Stasio: I never… Yeah. Growing up in Canada, it was always… wrestling's not very popular, but even how little popularity it has in Canada at the time, there was still always girls trying to wrestle. I wrestled boys in my high school team because I was just the biggest girl in the room. But I still had girls as well. A lot of my friends who come from the States, they grew up wrestling boys starting line up high school teams. And I was like, Man, I never would have kept with this sport if that's what I had to do.

They came to, SFU so tough and they had to know so much more coming in university, and then I'm coming there and like I wrestled for like nine months in total. Let's be here now. So that kind of for me was very lucky that I did have females to wrestle. But even to this day, like sometimes you'll be travelling. They'll see your backpack. Oh, what do you do? You wrestle. Oh, girls, wrestle? Yes,of course they do. I feel like girls do every sport nowadays.

Anastasia: Yeah. Yeah. And let's hope that that ignorance continues to go the way of the dodo.

Justina Di Stasio: I think its slowly changing, but when we were in university, every trip was that conversation, because you're travelling with a team, right? And they're like, Oh, what team is this? We didn't know there were girls wrestling teams in college. I said Of course there are. Yeah.

Anastasia: So you mentioned, during the pandemic you got your teaching degree. Congratulations.

Justina Di Stasio: Thank you.

Anastasia: Are you teaching yet, or are you?.

Justina Di Stasio: I'm a substitute teacher.

Anastasia: Okay, so how does that go ? What grades are you mostly in?

Justina Di Stasio: I love it. I'm doing anything K to 12 because I have to figure out what I really want to do. I was trained in high school English. I have an English degree because it balanced well with my wrestling. I really like writing essays, but I'm not great at the Shakespeare-y, all the grammar stuff. I'm great at the communication part, so I'm using my teaching degree and then learning what grade I really like, which so far I'm loving K to five, like the complete opposite of anything I was trained in.

Anastasia: Do all the kids just have, like, all the questions about your wrestling career?.

Justina Di Stasio: I don't tell them, but sometimes the teachers tell them. And then it's a lot of questions. They're very eager to learn about my life outside of teaching.

Anastasia: Yeah. What's the number one question? Can you put me in a hold? I'm guessing the rules say you can't do that.

Justina Di Stasio: The #1 question? Did you go to the Olympics? To which I say I will Someday!

Anastasia: What's the most transferable skill from, you know, your first first year of teaching.

Justina Di Stasio: To wrestling? Um. Adapting. Like, actually, they've, both gone back and forth. So adaptation to, like, the plan. So as a substitute teacher, I literally go in with no clue what the day is going to be. You walk in, you just have to adapt to the day, whatever the teacher's plan, and then, being a bit of an older athlete, I have to listen to my body constantly. Injuries and just like maintaining the ability to train at that level, you need to - adapting the plan throughout the week without being like, Well, now we're not getting what I thought I was going to get out of this week. So I'd say the ability to adapt that I had in wrestling, I took it into like teachers college and teaching and now I'm bringing it back a little stronger, back into wrestling.

Anastasia: I wish that I had Justina Di Stasio as one of my substitutes right now. It would change my life. Are you kidding? Like, so cool. An athlete of your stature becoming the substitute? I feel like when I was a kid, we were so mean to our substitute teachers.

Justina Di Stasio: They're… no.

Anastasia: Kids are nicer, I hope?

Justina Di Stasio: They're nice. They're nice. And because of wrestling, I'm not working as much as I would like to. So when I go in, I'm like, I'm excited to be here. So I feel like I bring a lot of energy. And the little kids, they love it. The high school kids, sometimes I'm like, they probably think I'm a little bit of a geek, but that's okay.

Anastasia: You're not a geek you are cool!

Justina Di Stasio: okay.

Anastasia: Oh, you are. You're Italian and you're Cree, and you had said that you didn't know if you should use your voice or it took you a minute to find your voice to speak on indigenous issues and activism because you have an Italian last name. So what helped you find your voice in that, in that subject?

Justina Di Stasio: I still am working on it. I think I'm forever going to be working on that. But the authenticity and never pretending to be something I'm not, not shying away from saying I'm as much Italian as I am Cree. I grew up very Italian traditional household because those are the grandparents we grew up around. My mom's family is from Winnipeg, so we went back as much as we could as kids.

But just sharing my story and my family comes from this nation. And then they moved to this small town and now some of them live in Winnipeg. And my mom eventually moved to Vancouver and I had all these opportunities growing up here kind of thing with a really supportive family. This-that, but never trying to speak inwhat experiences I don't have because my story is still indigenous, because I'm indigenous, but it's like a different look from traditional Indigenous stories because someone who grows up, like my family, my cousins who grew up in a more indigenous community, they're going to have a completely different, authentic story. So I've tried to just stay in my in my lane and say my experience. And I feel most of the time people still want it to come back to wrestling and sport. So I can always safely rely on that, to talk about that.

Anastasia: Have you have you felt like a spotlight on you or additional pressure to represent, you know, your Cree roots on the international stage?

Justina Di Stasio: I …not really, because, this is who I am. So I just, I try to be someone that I can be proud of. And my family, anyone who's related to me, friends, family, coaches, people I meet. And in that if they learn I'm Cree and it brings a positive spotlight to that, great. I don't think I'll ever bring a negative spotlight to that. So whatever positive effect or influence I can have with whatever lens someone wants to look at me at, it's like it's going to be a good thing because it's a positive thing. So I try not to bring it as an added pressure because when I was younger I was like: this is an added pressure. And then I was like, Just be yourself and if people like it, they're going to like it. Yeah.

Anastasia: So knowing that lesson and knowing now that you're you're loving substitute teaching with kindergarten to grade five, how do you want to help kids find their voice?

Justina Di Stasio: Building confidence and that your self is enough. I was always shy growing up. All -I have to be the best at something till I can speak up or, I don't know, like appearance wise, I really want to be presenting myself as put together. All these things. But the person who, got there or learned how to get there was just me. Like me in my sweat pants with my hair in a bun kind of thing. Working hard, might not be the most put together person, but I'm there, I'm showing up and I'm giving my best effort trying to be kind to everyone around me.

Then they're going to be kind back, kind of thing. Just being, I feel like this has been all I've been saying, but being as authentic to who I am so that whenever like someone asks a question or asked about something in the past, I don't have to think hard because it was all true. So I just think, this is what I did or this is how I presented this or this is what I struggled with. There's nothing made up.

It's just truly how I felt. So there's no remembering. I'm just, Oh, this is what it was. I think that's a really important thing for kids to learn, is that. You are enough. Then like the people who value or want to help or just want to be around you, they're going to like you for you, you don't have to be anything else. So that's like the little voice I hope kids can be proud to share when they want to share stuff.

When I go in and sub, I just say, 'love your blue shirt', (this is little kids). Oh my gosh, is this your favourite colour? Like, my very close is this. just trying to be really relatable kind of thing. "Love your blue shirt". That's such a weak example but just something like, Truly, I go in and I'm like, Those are some great light-up shoes. Where'd you get them? And they're saying, My mom got them for me, just little things. So…

Anastasia: It's true though! When you are authentic, it's actually the fastest way to be successful, too, at least in sport. That's what I found.

Justina Di Stasio: it's very… it's helped me. So it's my tip for anyone, that's helped me and it could help anyone, probably.

Anastasia: Would you say that's the key differentiator between how you define success and perhaps areas to grow from?

Justina Di Stasio: Yeah, I'm not really any more nervous to say what I don't know. And anyone in my room, I actually I was just talking about this week being at this Oregon camp. I was like, Oh, we're going in a new room, and I've done a lot of stuff in wrestling, but when I go into rooms and go to practice, I get beaten up because I try things and I'm trying to learn, but I'm also not the fastest learner.

So if we're working something new or going to a new room, my little ego is like, Oh, they're going to think you don't know what to do. And so I'm trying to let that go and just be like, Yeah, I am a slow learner. It's okay. Help me, somebody help me, help me get better at this. And when I was younger, I used to only do the things I knew. When I go into new rooms, only do what you know, and then it's kind of like, okay, you got really good at three things, but what are these ten other things you have to work on? So trying to stay open. I know this. I need help with this in every situation, even when I'm a little embarrassed. I think that's what's helping me right now, like coming back after that break and, growing in this part of my wrestling. I'm just so old that I'm like, Oh, I've done enough stuff that if you think, I don't know it, I'll probably go to the tournament and do well. So it's okay.

Anastasia: I am so excited to watch you on the road to Paris. Oh, it's been such a pleasure to connect and I'm excited to see what the future holds for you.

Justina Di Stasio: Thank you.

Anastasia: Peace.

Justina Di Stasio was call in from a training camp in beautiful Oregon …we recorded my side of the chat from CBC Sports studio in Toronto.

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