VANCOUVER — Britain's Prince Harry tried wheelchair curling on Friday (Feb 16), one of the many winter adaptive sports that will be part of the 2025 Invictus Games, an international sporting event for wounded army veterans.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who founded the games in 2014 for injured and sick service personnel and veterans after he served in Afghanistan, met Canadian military veterans as part of "one year to go" events for the Invictus Games Vancouver and Whistler event starting Feb 6 next year.
The sporting event in 2025, the first winter edition of the competition, is being held in Canada for the second time and will bring together 500 competitors from over 20 countries.
"There is a reason that the Invictus Games has come back to Canada... because you guys have got snow," he said on the last day of the preparation event.
Harry and wheelchair athletes used sticks to propel curling rocks and slid on the skeleton track. The games are adding winter sports such as alpine skiing, snowboarding, Nordic skiing, biathlon, skeleton and curling.
"I'll tell you what, the smiles on the faces that I've seen over the last few days, it proves why we do what we do," Harry said as his wife Meghan cheered.
Earlier in the day, Harry said King Charles' cancer diagnosis could bring the British royal family closer, adding that he loved his family and was grateful to have recently seen his father.
Harry, who fell out with the rest of the family after he and his American wife Meghan quit royal duties and moved to California, flew to London on hearing the news and had a brief meeting with his father, before returning to the US.
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