Elvis Stojko, who appears in CBC Doc Zone film, has advice for today’s figure skaters: keep moving the sport forward

Elvis Stojko became a Canadian Olympic icon when he won back-to-back silver medals at the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics, but a few years before winning his first medal Stojko made arguably his biggest contribution to the sport of figure skating.

At the 1991 World Championships he became the first skater ever to land a quadruple jump combination in competition. While he didn’t reach the podium at the ’91 World’s, landing that innovative jump seemed to mark the beginning of an extensive and impressive career for the Canadian skater that included three World Figuring Skating Championship titles and seven Canadian Figuring Skating titles on top of his Olympic success.

On Thursday, CBC Television’s Doc Zone premieres a film entitled ‘Ice, Sweat and Tears’, a documentary written and directed by Michael McNamara that will look into how far the sport has come over the years and what it really takes to win.

Stojko is one of the handful of Canadian figure skaters both past and present who’ll be starring in the documentary. Yahoo! Canada Sports caught up with him via Skype to talk about the evolution of the sport, the advice he shares with the current crop of figure skaters and the importance of taking risks.

Stojko on the evolution of figure skating:

Stojko on the importance of taking risks:

Stojko interestingly talks about Patrick Chan in the second clip, who is seen as the biggest Canadian star in the sport today. Though the 22-year-old has yet to have success on the Olympic stage, he’s already won two World Championship titles and was named the Lou Marsh Award winner in 2011.

Stojko, now 40, and Chan were on opposite sides of the fence after Stojko criticized Chan and other Olympic figure skaters at the 2010 Games in Vancouver. Stojko, who was working for Yahoo! Sports as an analyst at the Winter Games, created a fire (and ice) storm for ripping the men's field for not attempting the quad jump and thus taking the sport backwards rather than forward.

As Canadian Press reporter Lori Ewing wrote in a story back in January though, the two have settled their differences and actually bonded during the ‘Celebration on Ice’ tour in December.

Canadians can only hope that Chan takes Stojko's advice and runs with it, especially next week when the world figure skating championships take place in London, ON.