The upcoming Invictus Games will reunite Prince Harry with someone from his army training days.
The Duke of Sussex stunned Team UK with a video call from his California home, which he shares with Meghan Markle and his two children, Archie and Lili, ahead of the Invictus Games in the Netherlands.
The paralympic-style competition begins on April 16.
During the conversation, Prince Harry reunited with Vic Wales, his physical fitness corps teacher at Royal Military College Sandhurst while he was a cadet.
“Is my Sandhurst PTI someplace in here?” Harry inquired, causing athletes to point her out. “She’s right there. I can’t believe our paths are set to meet again after how many years – 15 years?
“You used to shout at me so much,” he added, prompting laughter from the team.
“Needed it,” one of the athletes told Harry with a nod.
“I needed it? Yeah, cool — well, that’s also fair enough,” Prince Harry replied.
The lead-up to the Invictus Games was described as a “rollercoaster” by one athlete, given that the Games were originally scheduled for 2020 but delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You realize that no one, not just you guys, no one’s got any excuses for not being fit now,” Harry joked to a round of laughter.
“For a lot of you, you’ve already, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve already won gold by just getting to this point,” Harry told them.
“The fact that you are sitting there now wearing that strip and you are able to wear the Union Jack on your arm again, means so much to every single one of you.”
Before he signed off, one of the athletes said, “Don’t forget your hat,” to which Harry replied, “Ah, sure,” bending down to retrieve a bright orange cap – The Netherlands’ national color.
He then pulls out a pair of identical orange sunglasses and unzips his hoodie to show a T-shirt and shorts of the same color, all as The Netherlands squad applauds.
The Invictus Games will be held in The Hague from April 16 to 22 this year.
The previous Invictus Games were hosted in London in 2014, Orlando in 2016, Toronto in 2017, and Sydney in 2018. They will be held again in 2023 in Düsseldorf, Germany.
