Elvis Stokjo still grieves his '98 gold medal loss. Here's how athletes can deal with disappointment

The 1998 Olympic Games was a polar bit for Elvis Stojko.

The canadian river enter skating asterisk arrived in Nagano, Japan as the reigning World Champion and silver medalist from the 1994 Lillehammer Games. He was widely expected to capture gold.

“When you're at the top, and you have a chance at a medal, and your dream has been this since you were little, you give everything, you sacrifice everything,” he told The Current’s Matt Galloway.

But Stojko was nursing a groin injury. He was visibly in pain and almost told the judges he couldn’t continue. He limped off the ice following his free skate routine and ended up winning silver.

He compared missing out on the gold medal to grieving.

“It really is traumatic when it doesn't go your way,” Stojko said. “When it [doesn't] happen, your whole belief system crashes.”

After pouring so much time and emotion into competing at the highest levels, major defeats can be crushing for elite athletes, say performance experts. While stakes are high at the Olympics, the true pressure comes from within, according to Dana Sinclair. 

“It's when we fall short of what we know we're capable of, that's when we get off the rails a little bit. That's when we get really disappointed and upset and it's hard to deal with because people feel like they failed,” said Sinclair, a performance psychologist at Toronto-based management consulting firm Human Performance International.

Sinclair is the author of Dialed In: How to Perform Under Pressure. She works with a variety of people looking to improve their performance under pressure, from professional athletes to surgeons to students. 

Sinclair says people can get distracted when pressure mounts and it’s time to deliver. 

“They're worried about results, they start to rush. They're worried about expectations, fear of failure, self-doubt, uncertainty, what somebody's going to think, all these things can pop up and get in the way.”

Jhanelle Peters, a Toronto-based registered psychotherapist and mental health clinician for high-performing athletes, tries to remind clients that the issue isn’t them.

“The pressure doesn’t come from inability, it doesn't come from a lack of skill, the pressure actually comes from the environment,” she said. “When the whole country is watching you, that's what makes you question your skill.”

Perhaps the toughest results to swallow from the 2026 Milano-Cortina Games were Canada’s two overtime losses in hockey against the U.S. 

"This one hurts," Canada women’s hockey captain Marie-Philip Poulin said after the game. "We wanted to bring it back to Canada. We showed up and played hard until the end, but we came up short."

Sidney Crosby missed the final with an injury, but commented on his team’s loss.

“I thought we deserved better and unfortunately didn't come away with the win."

Peters says elite athletes are trained to compartmentalize their emotions so they don't negatively impact their performance. 

When they finally sit to unpack their thoughts and feelings, it can be uncomfortable, she says. 

“It's a lot of expectation, a lot of pressure. So, when your body finally gets a moment to slow down, it's heavy, it hurts, it doesn't know what to feel.”

Peters helps people deal with their emotions once competition ends.

A technique she uses with her clients is reviewing footage of their performances, with a focus on mental and emotional analysis.

“We're not looking at it as the person executing the skills, we're looking at it as what this person was feeling, what they saw, what they heard,” she said. “[For example], look at your face right there. Let's zoom in. What would you call that feeling?”

Stojko says he looks at life through the lens of before and after the 1998 Olympic Games. 

“You have to search within yourself and find the why, and you have to be able to make peace with it, to understand all of those parts.”

But it’s crucial athletes don’t navigate that disappointment alone, he says.

“If a tragedy happens, the support system is very important. Coaches, especially, because they're there on the frontlines with you, family, close friends.”

To avoid the existential crisis elite athletes can experience after a major disappointment or at the end of their careers, Peters recommends thinking about their post-career future early. 

“As you are perfecting your craft, what else are you good at? What else do you find joy in,” she said. “It's so important to be able to combine the two and remind people you can be good at more than one thing.”

Elvis Stojko interview produced by Kate Swoger

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