Former World, Pan-Am Games and Commonwealth Games champion calls it a career

OTTAWA/COQUITLAM, BC – After nearly 15 years of representing Canada, Coquitlam, British Columbia’s Justina Di Stasio has decided to retire from competition. During her career, Di Stasio built an impressive resume that will go down as one of the all-time greats in Canadian Wrestling history. The now 32-year-old Di Stasio captured a World Championship in 2018, a Pan-American (Pan-Am) Games Championship in 2019 and Commonwealth Games Championship in 2022. In addition, she is a multi-time Pan-Am Championships gold medalist, medalist at numerous other competitions and 2024 Olympian.

While there have been many memorable moments, a few stood out to Di Stasio, including her start with the national team, her win at the 2018 worlds, being coached on the national team by two-time Olympic medalist Tonya Verbeek, and making her first Olympics in 2024.

“Winning worlds was a special moment, especially because I could hear my parents cheering from the stands. It reminded me of my tournaments as a kid,” said Di Stasio. “It also helped me frame everything in my life better. I realized it is about the journey and not the destination. It was amazing to feel the way I did on that one day, but it was only one day. I had worked so hard in the lead up, but I realized I had to enjoy those days too. I still wanted to be the best in the world and I never didn’t train like it, but from that point, I made sure to enjoy my wrestling every day.”

That love for the sport kept Di Stasio going despite setbacks that stalled her dream of competing at the Olympics. After failing to qualify for the Rio and Tokyo Games, Di Stasio qualified for Paris 2024, eventually finishing 12th. “Making it to the Olympics came with lots of pressure, but good pressure. I had won everything else and trained every day thinking I could be an Olympic champion. Even though it was a heart-breaking result, I know I couldn’t have worked harder and that helped me accept the result. I would have loved to make it there when I was younger, but I think I needed to be more mature to handle the result.”

Di Stasio has no doubt had a huge impact on the sport thanks to her stellar international performance, yet it might be some of her work off the mat that leaves the longest legacy. Di Stasio is Indigenous, with her mother’s family coming from Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba. Embracing her roots was never difficult for Di Stasio, yet as the successes came, there was more pressure to speak publicly, something that was difficult at first since she had lived her life in the Vancouver area. “I am really proud to be Indigenous. It was always normal to me, just who I am, but I realized that making it to the Olympics is also big for people like me. If seeing me on that stage and being successful can affect one child and lead to them setting a big goal for themselves, that means a lot to me.”

Now, Di Stasio has become more comfortable with speaking on Indigenous issues and become more involved in the community. It even crossed over into her post-wrestling career as a teacher. Following the Olympics, Di Stasio returned home to become a full-time Indigenous resources teacher. “During my career I felt pushed to speak out about my Indigenous heritage and I feel like it helped push me into this role. I didn’t grow up in my culture but now I get to learn more about it as a teacher. My goal is to stay in this discipline to keep learning more about it each day while teaching the next generation.”

For Di Stasio, teaching the next generation won’t end at the classroom. She recently began working on her requirements to become a wrestling coach, with the goal of coaching at the Canadian Championships (U19, U17, U15). “I spoke with our provincial wrestling association and one of WCL’s coaching evaluators to get started on meeting my requirements to coach at nationals.  I have seen a lot of teachers be wrestling coaches in our community, so there is a blueprint I can follow.”

As Di Stasio enters the next chapter of her career, she acknowledges that there are many people to thank. She says the list would be far too long to name everyone, so she wishes to thank them all for leaving a lasting impact on her career.