Petra Burka
Petra Burka (born November 17, 1946) is a Canadian former figure skater and coach. She won the bronze medal at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck and became the 1965 World champion, the first Canadian woman to win Worlds since 1947.
Born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, she moved to Canada with her mother, coach Ellen Burka, in 1951. Petra began skating around age 10 or 11 and quickly rose to prominence, becoming Canadian junior champion in 1961. In 1962 she made history by landing the first triple Salchow by a Canadian woman at the national championships, winning silver, and she finished fourth at her first Worlds in Prague.
She won Canada’s senior national title in 1964 and then for three straight years. She helped put Canadian skating on the world map by touring the Soviet Union, the first Canadian skater to perform there. In 1965 she won the World Championships in Colorado Springs and became the first Canadian woman to do so since 1947, also achieving the triple Salchow at Worlds.
She received Canada’s Outstanding Athlete of the Year (1964) and Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year (1964, 1965), and was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1965. Burka earned bronze again at the 1966 World Championships and retired from competition in 1969.
She then skated with Holiday On Ice until 1969, and later worked as a coach and as a TV commentator for CBC and CBS, covering Olympic, World, European and Canadian championships. She was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1995.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:07 (CET).