No athlete’s road to the Olympics is seamless. Justina Di Stasio’s has been challenging, but serves as a masterclass in patience and resilience.
The 31-year-old wrestler is an avid learner and believes so strongly in education that she took a one-year sabbatical from her sport during the pandemic to pursue a career as a teacher.
Her motivation and drive in her sport is sincere and centred. But it wasn’t always like that. When I recently spoke with Di Stasio, it struck me how self-aware she is.
Over the duration of our hour-long call, we chatted and she told me about her love for wrestling, her mental health advocacy, and learning more about her Indigenous culture.
I like to ask athletes how they fell in love with their sport. At this level of performance and success, it’s hard to imagine them not loving it — and Di Stasio is no exception.
She was exposed to wrestling in grade six at Banting Middle School because the wrestling room was close to her locker. She would peer into a small window and was fascinated. Admittedly, she did not love it at first but her high school coach, Selwyn Tam, changed that for her.
“I’m probably biased, but wrestling has really good people in it,” she said. “And I had the right people looking out for me since I was like 12. So it worked out.”
WATCH | Di Stasio ready to leave her mark on Paris Games:
Justina Di Stasio is getting ready for the biggest match of her life in Paris. CBC Indigenous reporter Jackie McKay catches up with her at practice.
Di Stasio loves wrestling and counts her family’s lack of intensity and knowledge as a reason she was able to love it from the start, and get opportunities from it. The support from her family was pivotal. Di Stasio did not feel pressured to perform and it enabled her to get better and practice without compulsion.
“There was no expectation, no precedent. No pressure to know how far you could go in it. I had no idea,” she told me. “And then as I got older, like no burnout, like there wasn’t a crazy focus on wrestling in my teenage years until I was 17-18 years old.”
Di Stasio says she had a lot to learn but being close to Simon Fraser University afforded her those chances. It boasts a very robust and active wrestling centre. In fact, she has never lived further away than ten minutes from her hometown of Coquitlam, B.C.
Although wrestling might not be as popular as hockey or soccer, it has a great hub in B.C., and Di Stasio always felt she could go forward.
The two-time Pan Am Games medallist and world champion is having her first Olympic experience in Paris. That matters tremendously as an Indigenous athlete.
Di Stasio is Italian from her father’s side and Cree (Norway House Cree Nation, Manitoba) from her mother’s side. Her identity was not something that she thought much about as a child.
“I definitely do now,” she says. “When I was younger, I wouldn’t speak about it as much because of the one athlete who’s Indigenous but there the idea of being like that one representative for all the Indigenous people with so much pressure, I felt like I had to be world class.”
After she won worlds, she began to speak more freely and the feedback and support from her community was immense but they reassured her that she didn’t need to wait to accomplish a goal or win a medal.
They told her: “being yourself is enough!”
“If people are seeing me as the first Indigenous athlete they’ve seen, I want to know what to say, and truly understand the history of everything a bit better. So, I actually got a job where I’m going to be an Indigenous educator, resource teacher.
Di Stasio spent her childhood visiting her mother’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Man., but when she became dedicated to various sports, extended family would visit them in B.C. The family connection was always strong, despite the distance.
“At the time, I was just a little kid. And I thought it was normal to be half Indigenous and half Italian. And then as I got older, I realized, like, that’s not as normal. Just because it’s my whole family. It’s unique. So if I knew that when I was a kid, maybe I would have paid more attention.”
Di Stasio never made the Olympic team before because Canada can only send one wrestler per weight class and lost twice in qualification rounds to Erica Wiebe, who went on to win gold in Rio at the 2016 Olympics.
Everything happens for a reason
Di Stasio has taken this in stride with patience and forbearance. She has also used life experience to understand more about herself as a person and an athlete.
“I think about the idea of failing forward. I’ve lost the Olympic trials twice. I’ve felt the lowest I’ve ever felt, twice. But in the aftermath of the first time, I started teacher’s college and started winning world medals,” she said in a previous interview. “And then the second time, I got a job, I met my boyfriend — all of these opportunities that maybe I wouldn’t have had if I had gone to the Olympics.”
She is reflective as she recounts her journey navigating her mental health. As she grew and trained more, she noticed the absence of high performance therapists and mental health supports in the wrestling space until she reached higher levels.
Di Stasio told me that she had what could be considered anxiety as a child.
“There were times when I was a little kid where I’d be like, we need to check all the doors, we need to lock all the windows,” she said. “But then it made me a great athlete; when you’re always questioning if what you did was enough, if there’s more you can do over analyzing things trying to work harder than everyone around you like never feeling content, it pushed me really, really hard.”
But during COVID, Di Stasio didn’t have wrestling anymore and couldn’t manage the feelings of anxiety. She says it was exhausting. As mental health issues that athletes face became more prevalent over the years, Di Stasio found courage and support from a friend and her fiancé to get help.
Di Stasio decided to take medication to help her and the effects were immediate. She was able to focus, and do activities without distractions and mental barriers, attend practice and focus on the training.
“I think it’s very important because I would not be going to the Olympics if I didn’t figure that out,” she said.
Di Stasio knows that success isn’t easy and doesn’t always come on a quick timeline but is committed to the long game, and there is tremendous peace in that.
“Good things take a really, really long time. The idea of easy persistence and discipline will take you so much further than, like, that lucky win when you’re a kid or that one huge tournament where you felt on top of the world. Chase that feeling — but don’t do it just because of that feeling.
“I think that’s a really important message for kids. I’m hoping that those lessons helped me in every aspect of my life.”
Di Stasio is clear that every path and step towards the podium was for a reason. But she’s an athlete whose generosity in teaching coupled with humility in learning, means she has already won in life.