'A mission and a purpose:' Team Canada announced for Invictus Games
Dave Innes was a strapping 18-yearold gunner with the Canadian Airborne Regiment when he broke his back in five places.
Training for a deployment to war-torn Bosnia in April 1990, the young paratrooper from North Bay, Ont., was travelling in a 2.5-tonne truck with about two dozen members of his artillery battery when the vehicle hit black ice, veered off a 10-metre cliff and flipped twice _ end-over-end.
“It was bad,'' the 47-year-old veteran says. “They had told my family that I had a 50-50 chance ... I'm lucky to be here, period.''
In a ceremony on the Halifax waterfront on Wednesday, Innes was officially named as one of 40 athletes who will compete for Canada this fall at the 2018 Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia.
The international event, slated for Oct. 20-27, is aimed at harnessing the power of sport to inspire the recovery and rehabilitation of physically and mentally injured military personnel and veterans.
Innes, who now uses a wheelchair to get around, will be competing in his first Invictus Games. He will represent Canada in powerlifting, indoor rowing and the notoriously rough sport of wheelchair basketball.
A bald man with a greying goatee, Innes exudes strength and determination. His neck, biceps and forearms are covered in colourful, intricate tattoos.
And across the rippling muscles between his broad shoulders, a newly carved tattoo reads: “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.''
The words are from the Victorian poem “Invictus,'' written in 1875 by William Ernest Henley.
“I've been training hard,'' he says, admitting that the training camp this week at Canadian Forces Base Halifax has been punishing, though rewarding.
More than 600 veterans and serving military members from across Canada applied to compete in the Games. Those chosen for the team come from all walks of life and virtually every rank.
“When we get together, there's no division,'' Innes says.
During the ceremony, held on a Royal Canadian Navy jetty, the CEO of last year's Invictus Games in Toronto, Michael Burns, summed up the event's main purpose.
“These Games aren't about the finish line, these Games are really about getting to the starting line,'' he said. “For many of these members of the 2018 Invictus Games Team Canada, just being here in Halifax has been a success, a triumph of their spirit.''
More than 500 competitors from 18 nations are expected to compete in 11 different events, including archery, cycling, sailing and wheelchair basketball, sitting volleyball and wheelchair rugby and wheelchair tennis.
“For the first time in many years, for many of the (team members), it will be an opportunity to put on a Canadian uniform again and wear that maple leaf with pride,'' Burns said. “But more than anything, it's an opportunity for them to have a mission and a purpose _ something that is often lost after they have served their country.''
The Canadian team includes 18 members of the Armed Forces and 22 veterans, all of whom acquired an illness or a physical or mental-health injury while serving in the military.
Brig.-gen. Mark Misener, commander of the military's Joint Personnel Support Unit and the head of mission for Team Canada, said the team members each bring a high level of dedication and perseverance.
“All were faced with a mental-health or physical injury ? but through reaching out to others, getting involved in sport, and their own courage and determination, they have been able to overcome the challenges they faced,'' he said.
Innes says the lead-up to the Games has inspired him to reach out to more veterans in his community. And he plans to return to school in September to study strength and sport conditioning, which will help him reach his goal of becoming a Paralympic-style coach.
Prince Harry, who served as a soldier in Afghanistan, created the Invictus Games, which were first held in 2014.
The Games last September in Toronto attracted international attention when Harry and his then-girlfriend Meghan Markle were photographed at a tennis match holding hands for their first official appearance together.