Eight months ago, Luka\u00a0Stoikos\u00a0was chasing a professional football career. Now, the University of Toronto architecture student is pushing for the podium at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games as a member of Team Canada’s bobsleigh team.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese last eight months feel pretty surreal,\u201d\u00a0says Stoikos. \u201cBut ultimately, I’m just filled with a great sense of gratitude for how the story unfolded.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the former Varsity Blues football and track and field\u00a0student-athlete, the road from Toronto to Milan was far from carefully mapped out \u2013 or even planned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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He had been preparing for the\u00a0Canadian Football League\u2019s three-day scouting event, known as the CFL Combine, when he decided to attend a similar event for potential Olympic athletes called RBC Training Ground.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cRBC Training Ground came to U of T and I was like, I’ve already trained for the combine, I might as well just do another one,\u201d\u00a0says Stoikos, who is pursuing his bachelor\u2019s degree in architectural studies at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He connected with Bobsleigh Canada at the event and was invited to a camp \u2013 but football was still the focus.\u00a0Stoikos had spent years training \u2013\u00a0early mornings in the weight room, extra sprint work, film\u00a0sessions, intense\u00a0combine\u00a0prep \u2013 and had earned a reputation at U of T for being\u00a0a powerful, explosive athlete. He was the kind of player who could break tackles, win races downfield and grind through any workout thrown his way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, ‘Listen,\u00a0I’m\u00a0still trying to get drafted to the CFL here. If for whatever reason that\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0work out,\u00a0I’ll\u00a0give you a call.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stoikos, right, at a BC Lions training camp in May 2025 (photo by Brian Johnson\/BC Lions)\u00a0\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n
Then, after being selected by the BC Lions in the 2025 CFL draft in April, Stoikos made it\u00a0nearly all\u00a0the way through training camp but was cut the day before the Lions\u2019 second preseason game. \u00a0<\/p>\n
For many athletes, that moment would have marked the end of a dream. For Stoikos, it quietly opened a new door.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe night I got cut, the\u00a0first phone call I made was to my parents,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThe second one I made was to my contact at Bobsleigh Canada. I said, ‘Hey, when do I start?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
His first bobsleigh experience in Calgary was anything but glamorous, however.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my first time touching\u00a0a sled,\u201d\u00a0says Stoikos. \u201cIt wasn’t even necessarily a real bobsled, just the frame sled that we use for training.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside the Ice House, an indoor training facility, athletes pushed \u2013 sprint, drive, reset, repeat \u2013 and Stoikos\u2019s years of Varsity Blues training were immediately apparent. The same lower-body power that fuelled his football and track and field career quickly translated to the most critical part of a bobsleigh race: the start.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’d touched the sled less than 10 times, pushed a pretty respectable time in the\u00a0Ice House, and they seemed pretty impressed,\u201d\u00a0Stoikos recalls.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His first run down a bobsleigh track in October was eye-opening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey brought us to Whistler to actually go down the track for the first time,\u201d he\u00a0says, likening the experience \u201cto being in a bathtub and then being put into the clothes dryer and then going down a mountain.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following a training camp in Whistler, coaches pulled him aside with the big news: he would be going to the Bobsleigh World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the most emotional part for me because I realized this Olympics thing might not be so crazy after all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
By November, Stoikos was racing internationally against the best athletes in the world. When the season ended, the team returned to Calgary\u00a0to find out whether they would be Olympics-bound.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The coaches called him into the office and asked him how he thought his first year had gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them I thought it was\u00a0pretty good. I love the sport, obviously, and I think\u00a0I’ve\u00a0got a lot to learn still.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then came the words that changed everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said, ‘Congratulations, you’re going to the Olympics.’ It was \u2026\u00a0pretty sweet,\u201d Stoikos says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stoikos\u00a0pushes the sled on the World Cup circuit (photo by\u00a0Viesturs Lacis)<\/p>\n
His eight-month\u00a0journey\u00a0from Bobsleigh novice to Olympian still\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0feel real.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a lot of just betting on myself,\u201d he says, crediting the many people who helped shape him at U of T, including strength and conditioning coaches Christopher Johnson and Seamus Egan-Elliott, track and field coaches Carl Georgevski, Rostam Turner and\u00a0Yolanda Sternberg and his many football coaches. \u201cI made a big decision, pursuing a sport that I had never actually done.\u00a0I’m\u00a0just\u00a0very, very grateful\u00a0it all worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the grandson of Macedonian and Italian immigrants, Stoikos says the opportunity to represent Canada at Milano Cortina 2026 is deeply personal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada gave my family so much when they moved here,\u201d he says. \u201cFor me to be able to give back and represent that country is honestly a blessing.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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