The Duke of Sussex has spoken of the “profound impact” the Invictus Games had on him at an event in Canada.
Harry travelled solo to launch the school program for the 2025 event, due to be held in Vancouver and Whistler in February.
The Duke marked the countdown by joining students at Seaforth Armoury, a historic military facility, where he launched an online program to introduce the Invictus Games into schools.
Prince Harry talks with students from Shaughnessy Elementary School during an event to launch the Invictus Games school program (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)
“Seeing them learn about the Invictus Games has had a profound impact on me because this is where Invictus starts to go even wider outside of the Invictus community, into schools in Canada and hopefully around the world,” he said.
Harry, a former British Army captain, launched the Invictus Games in 2014 as an international sports tournament for injured and wounded service personnel and returned veterans.
Addressing the crowd, the Duke also spoke of his emotions in seeing returned service personnel at the Games’ opening ceremony.
“You need to understand what that means to them because that can be a life-altering moment.,” he said.
“There’s resilience that has got them there. There’s teamwork that has managed to get them to the starting line, and there’s courage in getting them to that point.
We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity.
“For most of them, for some of them, it’s very hard to walk into a into a busy room, and here they are walking into a stadium of tens of thousands of people.”
In February, the Duke and Duchess officially kicked off the countdown to the Winter Invictus Games 2025 at a special event in Whistler.
Next year’s Games will feature the debut of winter sports including Nordic Skiing, wheelchair curling, snowboarding and alpine skiing.