Stojko Wins 1995 Worlds (en anglais seulement)

Elvis Stojko's mother stood in the stands and whistled. His choreographer shrieked and jumped up and down. His coach looked for someone to high-five. Even his closest competitor, Todd Eldredge of the United States, applauded, albeit glumly. And Stojko was not even finished skating. Bum ankle and all, the 22-year-old had just completed an unplanned and nearly unbelievable triple toe-loop jump in combination with a difficult triple Lutz more than four minutes into his already exhausting free-skating program. That flight of fancy elicited an explosion of applause from the audience at the World Figure Skating Championships in Birmingham, England, last week, and it propelled the Canadian to his second straight world title. For Stojko, who had badly sprained his right ankle on Jan. 10, the second title felt even better than the first. "I'm glad I went through those eight weeks [of rehabilitation] to have what I have now," he said with a big grin. "It is hard to put into words what this means. It is a sweet victory."

Stojko's victory had ramifications beyond last week's competition. Following Brian Orser's win in 1987 and Kurt Browning's four world titles between 1989 and 1993, Stojko extended Canada's near-domination of the prestigious men's event. And the victory sends the popular skater into another lucrative off-season of exhibitions in a year when audiences seem to have an insatiable appetite for the sport. Stojko's triumph also makes him the marquee performer going into the 1996 world championships - a bonus for Canada because the competition will be staged in Edmonton. As for the sport, Stojko's gritty performance once again raised the standard for future skaters. At the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, a top-level men's free skate needed six triple-rotation jumps; in Birmingham, Stojko landed eight triples, including two triple-triple combinations, and only just missed nailing his famed quadruple toe-loop. And his were not the only airborne antics: half the 24 skaters in the field landed triple Axels, a jump pioneered only 16 years ago by Canadians Orser and Vern Taylor. The next generation of skaters may need a pilot's licence.

Leading up to Birmingham, the conventional wisdom on Stojko was that he would be lucky to compete. Some reports suggested that he was nearly lame because of the ankle sprain that prevented him from defending his Canadian championship in Halifax in mid-January. His coach, Doug Leigh, did a stellar imitation of baseball's Sparky Anderson, the Detroit Tigers' manager who likes to take the pressure off his own team by talking up the strengths of its opponents. Leigh did not let up even when it was all over. "It was a test, almost, of survival," he enthused. And choreographer Uschi Keszler, no stranger to drama, got positively teary-eyed when she talked of Stojko's struggles. "Trying the quad was such a risk," she said. "If he'd landed that the wrong way he would have been out of there. But the only way Elvis knows how to compete is to go for broke."

Stojko himself played down the pre-Worlds it-will-take-a-miracle rhetoric and, throughout his workouts at the Mariposa figure-skating club in Barrie, north of Toronto, he remained outwardly confident that he would recover in time. But the injury did cut into valuable training: he was unable to practise the more difficult jumps until 10 days before leaving for England. And even though he had been assured that the ankle was strong enough, he was unsettled by the fact that the injury was to the foot on which he lands most of his jumps. Later, with his championship medal around his neck, he admitted that rehabilitation from the sprain had been a time of "frustration, doubt - the whole roller-coaster of emotions." In the end, he said, "I trusted myself. I knew I could do it, and I proved that to myself."

Stojko's victory was not supposed to be so hard fought. Russian Alexei Urmanov, who beat Stojko at the 1994 Olympics, is increasingly viewed as a one-hit wonder. Eldredge had been out of elite skating for three years because of a back injury. Philippe Candeloro, the mercurial Frenchman, had looked well off form at the European Championships in January. But the final produced some electrifying performances. To finish second and third, respectively, Eldredge and Candeloro skated to the limits of their abilities. Eldredge landed seven triple jumps, including two difficult triple Axels. "I'm obviously a little disappointed I didn't win," he said, "but Elvis went out and skated great." Candeloro, reprising his familiar Godfather routine with an unfamiliar goatee painted onto his face, performed with his usual passion and unusual precision. Urmanov could manage only fourth place.

Many skating observers had predicted a modest showing at the Worlds by Canada's team, which had been depleted in the post-Olympics season by defections to the professional ranks (including Browning, Josée Chouinard and pairs skaters Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler). But Michelle Menzies of Cambridge, Ont., and Jean-Michel Bombardier of Laval, Que., managed to finish 10th in the pairs competition and might have done better except that Menzies had been hit by a debilitating bout of chicken pox. Jennifer Robinson, 18, of Windsor, Ont., the only Canadian in the senior women's field and skating at her first senior international event, finished 19th overall.

The most stunning development for Canada was the fourth-place finish of dance team Shae-Lynn Bourne of Chatham, Ont., and Victor Kraatz of Vancouver. In the byzantine world of ice dance, judges usually make newcomers pay their dues for years before they can crack the elite. Yet Bourne, 19, and Kraatz, 23, have climbed from 14th at the Worlds in 1993 and sixth in 1994. They attribute their showing this year to working with Russian coaches Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko. "We want to move up gradually and be in contention for first place by 1997, the year before the Olympic Games," Kraatz said. "The ultimate goal is that in 1998 we want to be first. Anything that comes before that is a bonus."

For the organizers of next year's Worlds in Edmonton, the high placement of Stojko, Bourne and Kraatz, and Menzies and Bombardier was a relief. By finishing among the top three, Stojko ensured that three Canadian men would qualify for 1996. By finishing in the top 10, the pairs and dance teams enabled two Canadian teams to qualify in each event next year. Not that it makes a difference to the skating-mad Alberta capital, where tickets for all of next year's events at the 16,600-seat Northlands Coliseum sold out in 72 hours. (By comparison, the men's final in Birmingham attracted only 6,600 fans to the National Exhibition Centre.) "Our fans don't have to have the Canadian skaters there," Edmonton official Jim Wheatley said during a lull in competition last week. "But if they happen to come from Canada, or from Edmonton, then so much the better."

As the defending champion in his home country, Stojko will be under enormous pressure in 1996. But as much as for his gravity-defying jumps, he is renowned for his ability to shut out distractions and perform when it counts. That was apparent last week when, having seen Eldredge and Candeloro skate before him, he realized he would have to skate almost a perfect routine to win. That is why, at the end of his routine when he was surely exhausted, he tacked on the extra triple. "I knew that after missing the quad, I needed something more," said Stojko. "So I took a breath, gathered my energy and went for it." He did, and he won.

Maclean's March 20, 1995