"I had the strength and the finesse there and put it all together"
About this Quote
For a figure skater, "strength" isn't just muscle or macho posturing; it's the explosive power behind jumps, the stamina to keep speed, the nerve to commit to rotation when your body is screaming to bail. "Finesse" is the clean edge, the soft knee, the landing that doesn't betray the effort, the musical timing that makes the technical look inevitable. By pairing them, Stojko positions himself against a sport that often tries to separate the "athletes" from the "artists" and reward one at the expense of the other. His subtext is a rebuttal to that false split: you can be both, and the point is making the combination look seamless.
"I had" signals preparation rather than luck; the tools were already there. The key verb is "put" - deliberate assembly, like engineering. In the 1990s competitive landscape Stojko came up in, where men's skating was escalating technically and public debates about artistry were constant, that insistence matters. It's a self-portrait of professionalism: not transcendent genius, but execution under pressure, the moment when training cashes out and the body finally obeys the plan.
Quote Details
| Topic | Victory |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Stojko, Elvis. (2026, January 17). I had the strength and the finesse there and put it all together. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-the-strength-and-the-finesse-there-and-put-66266/
Chicago Style
Stojko, Elvis. "I had the strength and the finesse there and put it all together." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-the-strength-and-the-finesse-there-and-put-66266/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I had the strength and the finesse there and put it all together." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-the-strength-and-the-finesse-there-and-put-66266/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.







