Scottsdale Health November 2019

Olympic Hopeful
When Carpio was a high
school junior, she gained
the attention of the Sunkist
Kids Wrestling Club, a
main booster of the Arizona
State University’s Men’s
From the time Arian Carpio was 6, no one could keep her off
the mat. Not even her father, who ran the local youth wrestling
club where her brother wrestled.
“He didn’t take me seriously because I was very into Barbie
dolls and everything I wore had pink on it,” Carpio says.
It wasn’t until Washington – where Carpio lived – added a
high school Girl’s Wrestling State Championship in 2003, and
in 2004 Women’s Wrestling was added to the Olympics, that her
father let her wrestle.
“When I was younger, I thought it was my tenacity to keep
going to practices, but I now realize he saw that I could have a
future in it.”
Wrestling Program and the sponsor of more Olympic medalists
than any other US wrestling club. With her older brother
already attending ASU, Carpio graduated high school early and
moved to Tempe. In the fall of 2016, she became the second
female to ever walk onto the ASU Men’s Wrestling Team.
“Walking onto the men’s team was very humbling,” she
says. “It was a very cool experience, and ASU did a great job of
treating me equally. I had my own locker and gear. Being on the
same team as my brother was an unforgettable experience.”
Carpio has been competing internationally for Team USA
since 2013 and is currently No. 4 in the US overall for all ages.
Among her many achievements, she is a five-time national wrestling
champion, two-time Pan Am Medalist, and is training to
qualify for the 2020 Olympics.
Carpio’s training schedule is intense with weight lifting
and conditioning, wrestling practice, and treatments four days
a week. Wednesday and Sunday she does one workout, and she
gets a massage one day a week.
“After all I’ve accomplished, I think becoming the first
female to win my school district’s middle school championship
in 2009 was the most meaningful,” she says. “I had to wrestle
boys and they put my name on the school’s hall of fame in pink
to make it more special.”
A Determined Attitude
Though Carpio is currently on the road to greatness, her life has
not been without trials. Starting in eighth grade, she struggled
with eating disorders, specifically bulimia. By the time she was a
sophomore in high school, purging her food had become routine.
“When you’re an athlete that requires you to ‘beat the
scale,’ eating disorders can be deceiving,” she says. “At first
you think: ‘I’m only doing this because I have to make weight;
I don’t have a disorder.’ Then you find yourself purging food
when you’re months away from tournaments.”
Thankfully, Carpio reached out to a church friend when she
was 18. After a year of working with her accountability partner
to stay on track, she finally broke the bulimic cycle.
“My body transformed once I was able to start putting
healthy foods into my body
and stop purging,” she says.
Now, Carpio’s diet
is about what nourishes
her, citing the keto diet.
On heavy training days,
however, her nutritionist
recommends consuming up to 100 grams of carbs.
“Food used to be my enemy. Now I use it to fuel me,” she
says. “I think my cheat foods will always be jalapeno chips, sour
candy, or peanut butter cups.”
Throughout her childhood, Carpio also struggled with
physical and psychological abuse, among others. At 19, she was
homeless and in debt from her unpaid college tuition bill, and
lived on a friend’s couch for six months.
“It was so hard for me to get training in and transition into
this new life, but I didn’t give up and eventually got the hang of
it,” she says.
She is grateful to Sunkist Kids Wrestling Club for
providing her with the first form of unconditional love she has
ever experienced.
“I wasn’t performing as well as expected in my first years
sponsored by them,” she says. “When I went to take time off to
figure out my life, they were so understanding and loyal.”
Refusing Rejection
If it’s not already clear, Carpio is not one to give up. That
includes seeking help when she needs it, and seeing a sports
psychologist has been transformative for her.
“Therapy has helped me understand what I went through
and how it affected me. But most importantly, find the way to let
it fuel me, not stop me,” she says.
Carpio is already on the road back to success. In fact, this
past season she won her first national title since high school.
“It was hard for me to come out as a victim, especially
when I wasn’t performing, because I thought it sounded like
an excuse,” she says. “Now I want others to know that they
don’t have to give up. I think everyone who has been through
abuse should seek professional help. You go to a doctor to
fix a physical wound. Our mental health should be taken as
seriously.”
The Olympic Trials will be in April 2020, and Carpio thinks
about it every day.
“I stay motivated by remembering all I’ve been through and
sacrificed to keep wrestling.”
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