2016 Invictus Games inspire wounded warriors first, audience second

ORLANDO, Fla.--There was a furious racket coming from the rugby court. A man draped in a Danish flag chanted something in Danish as he ran toward the bleachers.

Down on the court, two rows of players wheeled past each other, pausing to bump fists. The game between the US and Denmark was over, the US beating Denmark 6-2 to end the day of preliminaries, and both the home and away benches resounded with the chants of fans. Team USA circled after the match.

“Who are we?” Cried the coach.

“USA! USA!” The team responded. The voices, loud. The pride, clear.

Between two courts, there is a sectioned off area demarcated by long walls of canvas dangling from the ceiling. It was almost like an equipment room made of fabric, and after the match, the athletes were wheeling toward it. Inside sat rows upon rows of expensive wheelchair technology sitting idle, a wheelchair parking lot. After the match, athletes headed to the wheelchair lot to change from their rugby chairs, low to the ground with canted wheels and metal cladding, to their daily chair.

These are the Invictus Games -- where sports meet technology, and anything is possible.

Rewind three days to Tuesday, before the compound was reconfigured to host these games.

Kenneth Fisher, philanthropist and chairman of Military Adaptive Sports Inc., walked toward me through the buzz of construction that has overtaken the 220-acres at ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Fla.

Fisher could almost fool anyone into believing that he is just another sports fan ambling through the impressive offerings of Disney’s sports venue, except for the fact that it was actually closed for the week: a few finishing touches were being put into place for the week-long athletic competition of the 2016 Invictus Games, mostly at Fisher’s request.

We turned and walked in the direction of a large outdoor stadium, one with bleachers that were not quite completely built.

“Are they extending the bleachers?”

“That? No. I had to rent it and have it installed,” Fisher said, waving his hand toward the enormous stadium in the far field behind the athlete and media tents. “It’s an Olympic-sized swimming stadium. Disney had almost everything -- but they didn’t have a pool. And now, none of the athletes have to travel more than a short distance between any of the events.”

Situated in a large and meticulously maintained sports-centric venue, branding has just been draped from the stanchions that line the shaded avenues leading to the compound. “2016 INVICTUS GAMES,” read the banners, with “I AM” highlighted in a bright, bold yellow.

What are the Invictus Games, and why have they garnered the attention of some of the world’s best-known political figures? The games are an international adaptive sporting event for military veterans and active duty servicemembers who have taken part in a year of qualifying events for the tournament. This weekend Orlando will play host to over 500 wounded military personnel-turned-athletes from fourteen different nations, and offer a chance to view these athletes in a range of competitive sports, including seated volleyball, track and field, aquatics, wheelchair rugby, and archery. The games, the second ones since their inauguration in 2014, are being held from May 9-12. The opening ceremony will take place on Sunday, May 8 and ESPN2 will provide daily coverage May 9-11 from 7-8 p.m. each day.

“The games are for these unconquerable people,” Fisher said, sitting with me on a warm stone bench overlooking the athletes’ tent-covered facilities on the field. “That’s what Invictus means in Latin, ‘unconquerable.’”

If you think the games are about inspiration, they are -- but not in the way that other international competitions are. These games are not primarily meant to inspire us, the fans watching the sports. They are meant to inspire wounded military personnel, to give them goals and the desire to live lives with purpose as they compete for their country.

“That’s the whole nature of the game, to show what can be done,” Fisher said, “To honor, educate, and inspire. I want to honor the service and sacrifice of the families. I want to educate as many people as possible about the effects of the unseen wounds, and I want to inspire those at home to come forward and get treated -- they can do this too.”

Fisher is no stranger to assisting wounded servicemembers. One of his family’s first philanthropic efforts was the building of the Fisher Houses, now 71 nation-wide, which provide free housing for the families of the wounded while they are undergoing medical treatment. His work with Invictus happened organically. Fisher and his wife Tammy, a businesswoman and one of his collaborators for the games, were invited to the inaugural event in London, in 2014.

“So Prince Harry started Invictus in 2014 --,” I began.

“Not really,” Fisher corrected me. “This concept was originally the Warrior Games -- back in 2010 or 2009, the [US] Department of Defense decided to incorporate adaptive sports into the rehabilitation of wounded servicemembers, and thus the Warrior Games were born. They had an affiliation with the International Olympic Committee, and the games were held in Colorado, at the Olympic facility. And since in 2013 the UK was invited, because they paid a pretty steep price (not nearly as much as us) -- Prince Harry came with.”

That, Fisher says, is where Prince Harry got the idea for the Invictus Games. After Fisher joined Prince Harry for the 2014 event, he felt so compelled by it that he wanted to help host the event in the US. “I got a thing for wheelchair rugby,” Fisher said. “It’s really what inspired me to do this event in the first place. Seeing that venue, it was in the UK, and just how animated everybody was, it was inspirational to them, and they knew it, and they felt it.

“To see them -- they were so angry when they lost. They were throwing their prosthetics against the wall. And I said, ‘guys, you’ve never done this before, don’t get angry.’ But at the end, they smiled.”

Fisher was impressed not by Prince Harry’s high profile, but by the fact that the prince is also a veteran who truly understood the meaning of adaptive games to wounded soldiers. “When he walks into the room, for me, he’s Prince Harry,” Fisher said, “But he’s also a two-tour combat vet. That gets my attention. He has my respect and admiration for his service. Bottom line, it’s just too compelling, when you think about sacrifices and everything else -- this is a man who’s keenly aware of it. And after he saw the Warrior Games, he wanted to take them home, and make them international. And only he could have done that.”

So how are THESE games different? First of all, says Fisher, they’ll be bigger than the 2014 games, by 100 competitors and one more country. And everything will occur on Disney property, rather than re-using Olympic facilities like the 2014 Invictus Games in London did.

“We’ll have the families stay together in one venue, in their own village,” Fisher said, his excitement plain as he described how everything came together. “We’ll have the athletes staying together in their village -- which is Shades of Green, the Department of Defense’s hotel here [in Orlando]. So there’s a certain symmetry there. And the furthest distance we ever have to move one person is five miles. So utilizing Disney infrastructure and their great hospitality -- this was the only place that this could work in this form.”

With the sounds of tools still ringing out over the venue a week before the start of the games, Fisher had already envisioned what it would look like fully built.

“Bottom line is you’ll see blades,” Fisher said, “You’ll see prosthetics. You’ll see a variety of things. And then when they swim, they’re not using anything. If they’ve given an arm to this nation, they’re going to swim with one arm. If they’ve given a leg, they’re going to swim one-legged. But one way or the other they’re going to finish.

”And the fact is, we can celebrate that they are unconquerable, they have overcome all of these things through adaptive sports. But we can also use the power of sports to shine the light on unseen wounds, and we all know what the suicide rate is. [A 2013 study showed the suicide rate among veterans was 30 for every 100,000 of the population, roughly double that of civilians.] But what we aim to do is educate, not only the country but the world, about these issues -- that’s the whole nature of the game, to show what can be done.”

Shahnaz Askins/Photo credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Phil Beaufort

Now as athletes arrive, Fisher’s completed vision is coming alive. The complex is bustling with athletes, friends, press, and support staff. Preliminary rounds were already well underway before Sunday night’s opening ceremony.

In search of a schedule, I got pointed toward the media tent, tucked discreetly off to one side of the main athletic fields. As I walked toward the tent, I passed two structures. One was a tent for emergency medical care for athletes, common at events such as this one. But the other was for repairing broken technology, which is a cornerstone of many of the adaptive sports. The two were situated right next to each other.

The tents inspired questions. What is the physical toll of these games, these tough competitions, to adaptive athletes? What is the additional cost to their bodies if they are injured, or if their tech is damaged?

After I finally collected my schedule, I met with athlete Shahnaz Askins, hoping to ask her these questions, and how she came to find herself here in Orlando.

Askins is a 38-year-old mother of three, a 17-year veteran of the US Navy. She looked supremely fit and just a little shy, and asked that we find a quieter place to talk. She has what President George W. Bush called in his Veteran Transition project a “hidden wound,” Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS) so deep that it caused her, at times, to consider taking her life. She lives with it daily, and has said that adaptive sports are not, for her, about overcoming her PTS, but growing strong enough to live with it.

Bush’s symposium on hidden wounds is a part of these games, and will take place before the opening ceremony, on Sunday afternoon, to further the overarching goal of supporting servicemembers’ health.

“In 2014 I went to the Warrior Games,” Askins said, settling back at the table at the ESPN Grill. “And just from going there, I blossomed. I was more of an introvert, and being there around the people, I opened up. The second year, I went to the trials, competed for that, made team. Then for this year, I made team again, but I turned down the spot because of the simple fact that I was already on the Invictus team. As a mom with three kids, my plate was full.”

The “adaptive” part of the games, for Askins, is negotiating the challenges that her PTS has brought to her life while still pushing forward day after day. Sports helps her set goals. She keeps a record book of her daily progress, and says that during hard times, she takes out her record book and looks at it to remind herself of how far she’s come.

“When you’re face-down on the ground, your confidence is gone. You feel broken, you’re useless, you can’t do anything. But you have a log book. You’re working out, you see those times. You remember where you started. And then you have a really bad day, you look at a log from two years ago and you see when you’ve improved. And just seeing that visual, you can say, I had a bad day...you can say, just shake it off and keep trekking forward.”

“How has it helped you overcome PTS?” I asked, and then immediately realized that I’d asked the wrong question. I’m learning as I go, too.

“I wouldn’t say that I’ve overcome it,” Askins corrected me. “I would say it’s a coping skill, a coping mechanism. It’s still there. It’s still there. Just recently I did not have a very good night’s sleep, but it’s not that you get used to it -- you just kind of use things that you learn through therapy, things that help you be mindful, put your mind somewhere else. Not saying that you’re trying to find ways to avoid it -- you can’t. When triggers happen, you don’t have control of your memories or dreams. What you can do, knowing those tools, is cope with it.”

I asked her about her sports, and watched her face light up immediately with the joy of discussing her passion. Askins is in three categories of competition this year: powerlifting, indoor rowing, and field, both shot put and discus.

Why does she love it?

“It’s the challenge,” Askins said, smiling. “Discus is known to be very complicated. It’s like Oly [Olympic] lifting, doing a snatch, it’s the most complicated lift out of all of the lifts. You want to master it, and it gets frustrating, and you don’t know why you go back to it, and you’re like no, I’m determined, even if you fail, fail, fail. The ironic part of my training is knowing that rowing is in there now. I used to hate rowing. But you can’t get better until you work at your weaknesses. And now I really enjoy rowing -- I understand it more.”

Caught up in Askins’ enthusiasm, I completely forgot to ask my questions about whether there was a downside to the competition. Camaraderie, setting and fulfilling personal goals, and simply being around other people who have been through what she has, made this event important for her.

“Being here -- we’ve all been face-down,” Askins said, “We’ve all thought, we’re useless, we’re broken. People don’t like being vulnerable to each other -- you don’t. You want to feel like you’ve got it all made, you’re on top of the world, but we’re all human. We’re not invincible, or made of armor. Having that camaraderie with your fellow service members, you can just come together naturally and have that common bond.”

To Askins, this camaraderie is what the Invictus Games are for. Even if the word means “unconquerable,” it’s not due to the strength of an individual standing alone.

“It’s like what they say about arrows,” Askins said. “One arrow can break, but when you have a bushel of arrows, it’s hard to break them all.”

More information about Invictus, including a schedule of events and ticket purchasing, can be found at Invictusgames2016.org.