VANCOUVER — More than 500 competitors from more than 20 countries are participating in the 2025 Invictus Games, currently underway in Vancouver and Whistler. The athletes who compete have physical and emotional traumas experienced in war and conflict, subjects Prince Harry doesn’t shy away from with his own children.
“It’s hard because kids, they’ll always ask the right questions,” the Duke of Sussex said. “So you either shut it down straight away, which I will never do, or you engage in the conversation and you try to explain things.”
During one such conversation, Prince Harry said five-year old Archie, his oldest, was asking about landmines.
“Interestingly, he gave me a chance to talk about my mum, his grandma,” Prince Harry said, adding that Archie saw videos and photographs of his grandmother, the late Princess of Wales, working with landmines all those years ago.
“It produced a very interesting conversation between me and him, different to what I thought it was going to be.”
Diana, the late Princess of Wales, brought global attention to the lethal devices in 1997, when she visited Angola with the International Red Cross, walking through a live minefield after a 20-year civil war that resulted in 15 million land mines contaminating towns and villages across the country.
Canada has been ‘really, really good to us’
Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, first went public with their relationship at the Invictus Games in 2017 in Toronto, when the now-Duchess of Sussex was working on the hit TV series “Suits,” and the Duke would come visit, “[A]nd make sure no one else knew about it.”
“Canada has been really, really good to my wife over all these years, and it’s been really good to us as well,” Prince Harry said.
The couple spent time on Vancouver Island after they stepped by from their royal duties.
“Certainly in 2020, it was amazing to be able to be in Canada with Archie and be able to go for hikes in amongst the local town and feel protected,” he said.
“We were here for more than six weeks before anybody found out. We were bumping into people the whole time. Nobody told anybody. I guess they told other people. But it’s not too much of a media or like (paparazzi) culture on Vancouver Island. There was (a) sense of respect.”
For the first time, the Invictus games will features winter sports, and are being hosted on four First Nations – Squamish, Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Lil’wat, which is reflected in the medals by Indigenous designer Levi Nelson.
Prince Harry has taken courses on First Nations and reconciliation online, and says he has also heard about their stories firsthand, “learning about their spirituality” as well as their connection to the land.
“The connection to nature is what’s keeping them going,” he said. “They must look at us and go, what are you guys doing?”
He honoured the First Nations in his speech at the Opening Ceremony, expressing his gratitude “for having these Games on your land.”
‘Stakes are too high’
For athlete and veteran Mark Beare, who was a logistics officer in the Canadian army before recently retiring, the Games have allowed him to “open up a little bit more, but also be a champion for my friends.”
“I that that’s one of the great benefits of this type of environment, is that everybody who participates in it, whether you’re a competitor, whether you’re a friend, family member, support staff, they all go back and they try and replicate that type of experience in their own network that they have at home,” he said. “(They’re) really encouraging those conversations and breaking down stigmas because the stakes too high to not be having those conversations.”
Like Prince Harry, Beare has served in Afghanistan and well as on domestic operations, such as the Assiniboine River floods in Manitoba and the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
As Commanding Officer, he says people would come to him with their stories of trauma and grief, but after years of listening, he hit a point where he couldn’t process it. The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 made him question his service and reflect on the loss of those of fought he with.
“Towards the end of my career, I was diagnosed with PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress disorder] and MDD [Major Depressive Disorder] and it really rocked me,” the Edmonton resident said. “I felt like I was broken and that I had failed.”
Beare says he didn’t share the diagnosis with his extended family until a year ago, when they started asking why he was taking part in the Invictus Games.
“It became a conversation starter for me, and that has been incredibly powerful,” he said, adding that it wasn’t that he was looking for any type of reaction, but just the ability to share and “not feel like I’m carrying this around all by myself.”
More than a decade after he founded the Invictus Games, the world is experiencing simultaneous wars and conflicts – including in Ukraine, from where current active servicemen and servicewomen are also competing in the Games. Prince Harry sees it as a promise he’s keeping to himself after he left the British military in 2015 to help soldiers heal.
“I wish we weren’t in this position 10 years later, when there are so many people that need the games,” he said. “In some instances, some of these people I met 10 years ago, and they’re back background again, either as a competitor or as part of the training staff. The amount of growth and healing that you witness is quite extraordinary.”
As for what the games could look like in 10 years – Birmingham, England will host the next one in 2027 – Prince Harry says each host country has shown a commitment to building on the success of the previous one.
“What makes this so special is everyone tried to beat the previous host nation,” he said. “Not necessarily by size or by scale. It’s how the experience plays out for these guys, girls and families.”
This year’s opening ceremony featured star performers such as Chris Martin, Katy Perry and Noah Kahan. The closing ceremony will feature Canadian favourites such as the Barenaked Ladies, as well as American rapper and singer Jelly Roll, who made it seem like he gave the Duke an Invictus tatoo.
Did it actually happen?
“That didn’t actually happen. I enjoy having people guessing for quite a long time about it.”
Speaking of the star power at the Games, Prince Harry says, figuring out logistics – “to find out who’s on what tour and where are they at one time” – can be tricky.
“But so many of these individuals love and respect this group of people so much, that they will move heaven and Earth to be here to support them, he said, adding that he’s grateful for the support.
“There are so many people out there in this world who would charge for their time.”
But he says he tries not to get too involved.
“I’m not having to pick up the phone the whole time. I try and leave it to the host nations as much as possible, because each nation is different. Otherwise, it would just be my taste of music every single time.”
CTV News Chief Anchor and Senior Editor Omar Sachedina sat down with Prince Harry for an exclusive interview, airing Thursday at 10:30 p.m. EST on CTV.
