Inside the 2025 Invictus Games with Harry and Meghan
The emotional stories shared in private conversations with the Sussexes.
“Oh my gosh, hi!” I said as I turned around and came face-to-face with the Duchess of Sussex. We were at a tubing park on the top of a mountain in Whistler and she had walked up behind me. “How are you?” Meghan asked warmly. “I’m so glad you came back.”
My trip to Vancouver and Whistler was a fitting return. I traveled here at this time last year for a preview of the 2025 Invictus Games, a chance to watch Prince Harry take part in training sessions as Meghan cheered him on enthusiastically. (You can read all about it here.) On this trip, I was excited to experience the games themselves, a gathering of more than 500 service people from 23 countries competing in adaptive sporting events.
As part of the accredited press pack, I was able to see Harry and Meghan on many occasions — from across the stadium at the opening ceremony in Vancouver to up close alongside the skeleton track in Whistler. On Tuesday morning, I was the only journalist inside their private friends and family tubing session. I watched them offer tearful hugs and words of encouragement, as well as gather for pictures with excited members of the Invictus community.
Those very human and often quite emotional interactions were a defining part of this trip for the Sussexes — and the source of some of the best pictures (you know that’s where my visually minded So Many Thoughts brain goes!). At every stop, the couple made plenty of time to speak to athletes and guests, as well as the scores of volunteers that made the games possible. Photographers snapped away, as did the rest of us with our cell phones, myself included.
Many times the crowd anecdotes stand on their own, like when Harry met a member of Team Australia backstage after the Whistler Welcome. During his remarks, he had spotted her in the crowd with a jar of Vegemite in hand. She waited at the barricade to give it to him; he looked genuinely touched and gave her two big hugs, while Meghan snapped an adorable photo. The Sussexes then headed to the skeleton track at the sliding center, when Meghan told two children: “You know what they say? A face without freckles is like a night without stars.”
When time allowed (meaning we weren’t racing to the next stop) the press would disperse, with reporters asking a few questions of the people they just spoke with. It is a way to fill out the story a bit — after all, Harry and Meghan aren’t exactly offering up interviews. Talking with people who talked to them provides insights into the couple and, more broadly, what Invictus means. On their own, these anecdotes can seem like one-off little stories. But taken together, I think they offer an important perspective.
Here’s one example: At wheelchair basketball game on Sunday, two kids approached the Sussexes with a box in hand. I zoomed in on my phone and spotted a Funko Pop of Harry, which got quite the chuckle from the duke and duchess.
Later, Emily Burack of Town & Country tracked down the family who had given it to him. “I think they put him on the spot,” the kids’ father, Lucio Gaytan, told her. She also asked about the games, and what it meant to play wheelchair basketball for Team USA. “To be able to wear this flag, to wear a uniform and represent my country,” he said, “and for my kids to see me here because they never saw me in the military, they never saw me in uniform—it definitely means a lot.”
Below, I wanted to share a few stories I heard myself. At tubing, I chatted with the 10-year-old Australian who challenged Harry to a race, along with both his parents about Invictus (wait until you read what his mom said about Meghan’s reception remarks!). I also caught snippets of a conversation Harry had with a silver medalist from Team UK and watched Meghan give her gloves to a team staffer. I hope these can serve as a counter-programming to some of the more cynical clickbait I have seen out there. I remain steadfast in my belief, after two trips in two years, that what Harry has built with Invictus is needed and very helpful to those involved.
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Inside the 2025 Invictus Games with Harry and Meghan
(Photos throughout by yours truly)
Allie McClellan from Team UK
The Sussexes headed to the Whistler Sliding Center Monday evening to watch the skeleton racing, where competitors slide down an ice track on a very small sled at high speeds. In the mix of the Invictus community was Allie McClellan from Team UK. A veteran of the army, McClellan had competed in rowing, cycling and athletics at the Düsseldorf games. In Canada, she returned as a staff member. When she saw Meghan on the side of the track on Monday, McClellan approached the duchess to share how Invictus helped in her recovery.
“It’s an incredible family,” McClellan said when I asked her afterwards. “It’s allowed” — she paused, tearing up — “me to just get out the house and accept that people do like you. It just helped me know my worth.”
McClellan said she prefers to stay in the background, especially in her role as support staff. Still, she hoped to have the opportunity one day to say thank you. With the Sussexes so close, she went for it, thinking: “I’m never going to get another chance.” McClellan chatted with Meghan for quite some time, sharing a tearful hug. The duchess then brought her over to Harry, wanting him to hear McClellan’s story. Noticing her cold hands, Meghan offered up her gloves.
Zoe Thomson from Team UK
“How’s the fatigue?” Harry asked as he knelt down in the snow next to Zoe Thomson at the tubing center at Whistler on Tuesday. Thomson, a member of Team UK, served in the Royal Air Force for 16 years, including tours in the Falklands and Afghanistan.
“Yesterday was tricky,” Thomson said candidly, “after the high of wheelchair curling.” She is in a wheelchair due to connective tissue disorder and has also suffered from long Covid, she told the BBC. Thomson came to Invictus to compete in swimming, wheelchair curling and skeleton. The Sussexes had a front row seat for curling at the Hillcrest Community Centre in Vancouver on Sunday, where two sets of teams squared off.
“You watched the wrong semi-finals,” Thomson chided Harry. “We were watching both!” Harry said. “You’re in trouble,” she said, then added with a laugh: “You were cheering for Canada!” She recapped the results with the Sussexes, including Team UK bringing home silver. “Hey, we’ll take that,” Thomson said. “A year ago we had never heard of wheelchair curling and it is the best sport ever.”
“I learned so much about curling,” Meghan said. With Harry and Thomson, she began rattling off terms from the sport: “The house, the button!” Thomson then began brainstorming ways to encourage curling, bringing it down from Scotland and into England. “So you’re really into it now?” Harry asked. “It’s absolutely amazing,” Thomson said.
Carole Adshead from Team New Zealand
“We didn’t know they were coming here today!” said Carole Adshead at the friends and family tubing event. She traveled to Canada to support her husband, who is competing for Team New Zealand in wheelchair basketball, skeleton and alpine skiing. When it was their turn for a photo with Prince Harry, she delightedly leaned towards him from the front row (that’s her with the phone in her hand).
“Just hearing his name lifts everybody’s spirit,” she said of the duke. “Our people need this. They’ve been through so much that they need something like this to just give them hope.”
The Greenstreet family from Team Australia
At tubing on Tuesday, Harry raced 10-year-old Hamish Greenstreet down the “thrill” lane. The two had chatted ahead of time, with Hamish challenging the duke himself. What was it like meeting a prince, I asked? “Exciting,” he said. Had he ever met one before? “Hell no!” he said.
Hamish, his mother, Angela, and his 12-year-old brother, Taj, traveled to Invictus to support their father, Dane, a competitor for Team Australia. When the Sussexes stopped by tubing, the boys excitedly shared their stories with Meghan. “Go down the thrill lane!” Hamish urged Meghan. “No way!” she responded. “Absolutely not!” she added. The duchess then turned to Taj. “Did you go down the thrill lane, too?” she asked. “No, I went down the chill one,” he said with a smile.
While we were waiting for the race, I asked Angela Greenstreet what Invictus has meant to their family. “It’s been a lot of therapy for my husband,” she said, “realizing it’s OK to not be OK. I’m very grateful to Prince Harry for speaking out about mental health.” She paused briefly, her voice catching. “He’s not a normal guy. Prince Harry’s the prince. But he suffers just like everybody else, so it’s truly amazing that everybody suffers, no matter where you come from. Everybody is touched by the military. We’re very grateful he’s spoken out and made Invictus what it is.”
Later, I ran into the family in Whistler Village. Dane had joined them, and echoed his wife’s sentiment. He enlisted at the age of 17, serving in the Australian Army as a Marine Specialist. Dane was medically discharged in 2016 with PTSD as well as depression and anxiety. “Using sport to rehabilitate people has been the one thing that has kept me going,” he told me. “To be able to come together and play these games with 500 other people is just phenomenal.”
The Greenstreets were abuzz, with the boys sharing the news that they had spent time with Harry and Meghan. “When I got the photos of these guys meeting them, it’s next level, isn’t it? I didn’t think they would ever get to hang out with royals,” Dane said. “It wasn’t just a quick handshake and run away, they actually got to hang out together.” As for his son challenging Harry to a race, Dane said: “Good on him!”
Even though Hamish had gone down the thrill lane before, when it came time to race Harry he said, “I was still a bit nervous.” Afterwards, he thanked the duke more than once, calling the race “really fun.”
Before I left them, Angela shared how moved she had been by Meghan’s remarks at the friends and family welcome reception Friday evening. “You just could feel the love that she has for Harry when she introduced him,” she said. “It just radiated out of her. It was beautiful.”
A story of my own to share: I was at the bottom of the tubing hill when Meghan came down. As we all saw on her Instagram Stories, she was nervous about it beforehand. I offered up that I had just done it with my kids in Tahoe and, though a bit scary, I had a blast. That is why, at the end of this video, I offered up such an enthusiastic “Great job!” If you listen closely, you can hear her say: “You were right.”
PS: Looking for more of these stories? I traveled with three excellent reporters and want to share links to their stories: Emily Burack from Town & Country, Rebecca Lewis from Hello!, and Janine Henni from People.
I am so glad that you have gotten to cover Invictus. It is so sad to continue seeing the negative press these two get just for breathing at times, when they are clearly doing meaningful and wonderful work. How many people have to say that their lives have been changed by Invictus or H and M are truly wonderful people who care before the narrative will change?! I am so thankful for journalists like you that are spreading the positivity.
What a delight to see your coverage of the games, Elizabeth! Seeing Harry and Meghan show such kindness and that they took the time to really hear the stories of the competitors and their families was so lovely. It brightened my week to read about people coming together to encourage each other and make a positive impact in the world. Well done!