From Whistler, CAN
(October 11, 2024) -Just over a decade ago, the Invictus Games launched in London with 300 wounded, sick and injured servicemen and women from 13 nations competing in ten events over four days. Over the next ten years, the event has grown with more nations and athletes added through the next five installments. The one thing that has remained constant from Games to Games has been the “Summer Games” feel. These have included events similar to the Paralympic Summer Games including archery, weightlifting, cycling, and swimming.
That is set to change in the seventh edition of the Invictus Games, this time to be held in Vancouver and Whistler. For the first time the Games will have winter sports, including skeleton on the 2010 Olympic track at Whistler Sliding Centre
Chelsey Walker, the Director of Whistler Operations for the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025, saw an opportunity for the Invictus Games to expand into something more than it already was, and saw Whistler as the right spot for it.
“The Games were an amazing experience for the competitors and the Invictus Games Foundation was interested in exploring what it could look like in other iterations,” Walker told Sliding On Ice in an interview earlier this summer.
At a sit-down meeting with Dominic Reid, the CEO of the Invictus Games, Whistler made its pitch of including adaptive winter sports.
“One of the first things we did was bring Dominic to the Sliding Centre where he was able to experience and see skeleton firsthand. It really blew his mind!”
The bid took a while to come to fruition, but in 2021 the ball really got rolling.
“We picked up the conversation with the Invictus Games Foundation and looked to develop a bid here locally in partnership with TruePatriot Love Foundation and we were very successful when in March of 2022 we got the rights to hold the Invictus Games in 2025 with the inclusion of adaptive winter sports!”
Alongside skeleton, the 2025 edition of the Invictus Games will include alpine skiing, snowboarding, biathlon, nordic skiing and wheelchair curling. Traditional Invictus Games sports of indoor rowing, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, sitting volleyball and swimming will also be included.
While the IBSF currently holds para-bobsleigh events, para-skeleton fizzled out early on in the paralympic movement for sliding sports. Despite that, skeleton looked to be a better fit for the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025.
Tracy Seitz, the Managing Director of Whistler Sliding Center, said that despite the lack of an existing paralympic movement for skeleton, the sport was still a perfect fit for Whistler and the Invictus Games 2025 in part due to it not being terribly different than what the current novice sliders get at the track.
“It’s a tried and tested product from our public sliding side of things. The addition of coaching and the process of getting each competitor through the lens of their disabilities, we’re doing all we can to provide a safe and fun environment for the Games”, Seitz said.
In regards to the safety for the competitors in what will be the fastest sport over the course of the event, Major Paul Dhillon, the Chief Medical Officer of the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025 added: “The health and safety of everyone at the Games, including competitors, is our number one priority. This starts with respecting all safety procedures as maintained by Whistler Sliding Centre for all public sliding runs. In addition, we will implement a review panel including members of our dedicated and experienced medical and sport teams, along with members from the Invictus Games Foundation, to assess and confirm a competitor’s suitability to compete including their ability to grip the sled.”
The course for the event will be shortened to the final six curves of the Whistler Sliding Centre. Competitors will start at Lynx, slide through Shiver and the Gold Rush Trail before finishing through Thnderbird where so many medals have been won and lost.
The competitors will be using a sled that to the naked eye will be just like those at the higher levels of skeleton, but will have some adjustments.
“The experience will comply with the Canadian Transportation Safety Board height and weight requirements for control and include a mandatory safety briefing for all competitors,” Amy Haken, Manager of Sport for the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025 said. “Participants will also use a sled modified to be more stable, with flat nonadjustable runners front to back, providing greater stability through more contact with the ice. While risk is inherent in all sport activities, we are taking every possible measure to mitigate it and deliver a safe field of play for all competitors.”
“We’re taking it back to the early days of paraskeleton,” Walker added. “We’re looking at the different physical profiles that can be on a skeleton sled that you might not have typically seen in an IBSF event. It’s been really exciting to work with folks within the sports, both here in Canada and within the UK and the US…to really think about how we can do this.”
At the core of the Invictus Games, the events are there for the competitors, both to celebrate them and to give them opportunities they may not have otherwise had.
“We had Peacemaker Azuegbulam come up from Nigeria,” Walker recalled. “He comes up to Canada and has never seen snow! He went out skiing and is like “Wow, this is the best day ever!” Then he went to the skeleton track the next day and goes down the track…he’s a slightly above the knee amputee. He comes out of the outrun and is beaming and he says “NO! This is really the best thing ever!””
When asked why, he said “All it takes is courage
