Sports This Week: Stojko to skate in Yorkton event

YORKTON - When it comes to figure skating, Canada has produced many notable skaters through the years – none with a more lasting legacy than that of Elvis Stojko.

Stojko was a three-time world champion (1994, 1995, 1997), two-time Olympic silver medallist (1994, 1998), and seven-time Canadian champion (1994, 1996–2000, and 2002).

And, the Newmarket, Ont.-born skater continues to skate as a way as he says “to pay it forward” to young skaters – an effort that has him scheduled to be in Yorkton March 22 to skate the headliner in the Skate Yorkton Ice Show.

Stojko, now 52, actually stepped away from the sport at one point, after moving to Mexico.

“I stopped skating for two, or three years,” he told Yorkton This Week in a recent interview.

Stojko said he found it easier to step away from skating than he had when he stopped competitive skating – a decision he said had a greater impact on his day-to-day life.

“I felt guilty,” after stopping competitions,” he said. “It was a weird sort of abyss. . . I had all this time (not having the regime of practice).

But, in time he found his way back to the ice focused not on winning medals, but the joy of skating.

“I sort of found a new level of love for it,” he said.

Today, Stojko has found a new life balance of sorts, putting in time on the ice because figure skating requires constant practice to maintain skills, but also spending time with other life interests.

For example when called by YTW Stojko related he had just been under a car working on it. He explained he has held a life-long interest is racing, and is now actively pursuing those sport opportunities.

“I’ve been involved in motorsports since I was a kid,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to race in some fashion.”

Through the years Stojko has raced go karts and now the big cars in Canada, the U.S, and Europe, and the energy and desire that carried him so far in figure skating has him with high expectations behind the wheel. In the interview he mentions both Le Mans and Daytona as dream races.

“That for me would be huge,” he said.

In between skating at events like the one in Yorkton, and racing cars, Stojko is also taking on acting roles. Fans might have seen him when Stojko played Sam Marshall, an ex-convict, in the Canadian television period drama Murdoch Mysteries, in episode 13 of season 12.

It is something else he said he hopes to pursue in a bigger way, noting that the skill of expression needed to portray emotion in skate routines is a transferable skill to acting.

But, skating is still a big part of what is obviously a very busy life for Stojko who will always be remembered for his effort at the 1991 World Championships, when he became the first person to land a quadruple-double jump combination.

Stojko said it hasn’t always been easy being a male figure skater, but thanks in part to skaters that came before him and inspired him, he persevered.

Now he said he hopes he can still inspire others – to help them learn “to be yourself on the ice.”