Justina Di Stasio

Biography

Justina Di Stasio was first exposed to international competition at the 2011 Junior World Championships after she won the first of her back-to-back junior national titles. She was on the podium at the senior Canadian championships in 2012, 2013 and 2014 before winning her first senior national title in 2015. After winning gold at the 2014 Austrian Open, Di Stasio earned two more prestigious international victories in 2015 at the Dave Schultz Memorial and the Pan American Championships.  Di Stasio won 75kg silver at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games, the same year she won the first of her three straight continental championships and competed at her first senior world championships. In 2017, she won 75kg bronze at the world championships. In 2018, after she missed qualifying for the world championship team in her natural 76kg weight class, she dropped down to 72kg and ended up being crowned world champion.

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT JUSTINA

Getting into the Sport: Started wrestling at age 13… Was a multi-sport athlete coming out of high school but decided to focus on wrestling because it offered her the chance to go to a great university… Didn’t really love the sport until she was in university… Won the junior national title at the end of her first season… Outside Interests: Graduated from Simon Fraser University in May 2015 with an English degree… Odds and Ends: Nickname: Juice… Collects glasses and key chains during her travels… Favourite motto: “Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back… play for her.”