Elvis Stojko

As the family story goes, when Stojko was two he saw figure skating on the family television, pointed at the screen, and declared, "I do dat!" His mother, Irene, signed him up for skating lessons at age five, and within a few years he was jumping better than many adult skaters. At age 15 he became the Canadian junior champion; Canada's other male figure skating stars, Brian Orser and Kurt Browing, did not achieve that status at such an early age: Orser was 17 and Browing was 18.

Although Stojko's mother introduced him to skating, it was his father, Steve, who enrolled him in karate lessons at age nine. He earned his black belt a mere seven years later. Karate has long been nearly as much of a love for Stojko as figure skating, and the influence that martial arts have had upon him can be clearly seen in many of his programs. Over the years he has skated to sound tracks from martial-arts themed films and to the sounds of Japanese taiko drummers,

Elvis Stojko

and his choreography owes much more to Bruce Lee than it does to ballet.