"I guess if anything I can say, these last eight months feel pretty surreal," said Stoikos. "But ultimately, I'm just filled with a great sense of gratitude for how the story unfolded." 

For the former Varsity Blues football and track and field student-athlete, the road from Toronto to the Olympics wasn't carefully mapped out. It wasn't even planned. While preparing for the CFL Combine, he also attended the RBC Training Ground when it stopped on campus.  

"RBC 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," he said. 

There, the architecture major connected with Bobsleigh Canada and was invited to a camp; however, football was still the dream. 

"I was like, 'Listen, I'm still trying to get drafted to the CFL here. If for whatever reason that doesn't work out, I'll give you a call.'" 

Then football didn't work out. After being selected by the BC Lions in the 2025 CFL draft in April, Stoikos made it nearly all the way through training camp, but the day before the second preseason game, he was cut.  

Stoikos had done everything right. Years of training, early mornings in the weight room, extra sprint work, film sessions and intense combine prep. 

At U of T, he built a reputation as a powerful, explosive athlete - the kind of player who could break tackles, win races downfield and grind through any workout thrown his way. That foundation, he says now, is what quietly set him up for everything that followed. 

"Competing for the Blues was a big part of that," he says. "I couldn't have learned those skills if it wasn't for competing for the Blues." 

For many athletes, that moment would signal the end of a plan years in the making. For Stoikos, it quietly opened a new door. 

"The night I got cut, the first phone call I made was to my parents," he recalls. "The second one I made was to my contact at Bobsleigh Canada. I said, 'Hey, when do I start?'" 

Eight months later, Stoikos is heading to the Olympic Games. 

His first bobsleigh experience in Calgary was anything but glamorous. 

"It was my first time kind of touching a sled," said Stoikos. "It wasn't even necessarily a real bobsled, just the frame sled that we use for training."  

Inside the ice house, athletes simply pushed. Sprint. Drive. Reset. Repeat. However, years of Varsity Blues training showed immediately. The same lower-body power that fueled his football and track & field career translated perfectly to the start, the most critical part of a bobsleigh race. 

"I'd touched the sled less than 10 times, pushed a pretty respectable time in the ice house, and they seemed pretty impressed," Stoikos recalled. 

Still, nothing prepared him for his first real run. Whistler changed everything. The experience was impossible to describe. 

"They brought us to Whistler to actually go down the track for the first time," he said. "It'd probably be equivalent to being in a bathtub and then being put into the clothes dryer and then going down a mountain," he said with a laugh.  

Following training camp in Whistler, coaches pulled him aside with news that felt bigger than he expected. 

"They were telling people who was going to the [Bobsleigh] World Cup and who was staying on the North American circuit," he said. "When they brought me on World Cup, that was the most emotional part for me, because I realized this Olympics thing might not be so crazy after all." 

By November, Stoikos was racing internationally against the best athletes in the world. Just months earlier, he hadn't even touched a sled. When the season ended, the team returned to Calgary knowing decisions were coming. 

"We got back to Calgary and the first day when we landed, we were like, okay, this is the day we're going to find out," he recalled. 

The coaches called him into the office and asked him how he thought his first year had gone. 

"I told them I thought it was pretty good. I love the sport, obviously, and I think I've got a lot to learn still." 

Then came the words that changed everything. 

"They said, 'Congratulations, you're going to the Olympics.' It was… pretty sweet," Stoikos said with a chuckle. 

From late October - his first true run down a track - to late January, Stoikos had gone from rookie to Olympian. 

Eight months. A timeline that still doesn't feel real. 

"It was a lot of just betting on myself," he said. "I made a big decision. Pursuing a sport that I had never actually done. I'm just very, very grateful it all worked out." 

Gratitude extends beyond the ice. He credits the people who helped shape him at U of T, including strength and conditioning coaches Chris Johnson and Seamus Egan-Elliott, who prepared him for the combine and unknowingly for bobsleigh, too, as well as his football coaches and track and field coaches, Carl Georgevski, Rostam Turner and Yolanda Sternberg. 

As the grandson of Macedonian and Italian immigrants, representing Canada means something deeply personal to Stoikos.  

"Canada gave my family so much when they moved here," he said. "For me to be able to give back and represent that country is honestly a blessing."  

For Varsity Blues fans, the story feels familiar: hard work, resilience, and a student-athlete willing to embrace the unknown. 

What makes Stoikos' journey remarkable isn't just that he's going to the Olympics.  

It's how fast it happened. One cut. One phone call. One leap of faith.  

Eight months later, a Varsity Blue is headed to the Olympic Games.