• Sports TravelMagazine.com 25 October/November 2017
and they used the Invictus Games as
the reason why they did.”
Planning in Toronto
Meanwhile, Toronto held its own Invictus Games this year in late September,
with more than 550 competitors from
17 nations participating in 12 sports,
including cycling, archery, seated volleyball and wheelchair tennis. Events took
place at various sites in Toronto, such
as Nathan Phillips Square, Fort York
National Historic Site and the Distillery
District. Golf competition was held at
St. George’s Golf and Country Club.
“What I’m so excited about is that
people who didn’t even know about
adaptive sports or para-sports or the
Invictus Games will just be walking
through a busy square in Toronto, and
they’ll get to witness this,” said games
spokesperson Stephanie D’Lima.
Toronto was able to leverage infrastructure and expertise already in place
for the Toronto 2015 Pan Am and Para-pan American Games. But these games
have special requirements as well.
“Many of these people are dealing
with invisible wounds, mental illness
and other stress disorders,” D’Lima
said. “We understood that some are in
fragile states, especially when you put
them in these high-stress situations.
They’re competing. They’re away from
home. Maybe there’s a language barri-
er. So triggers are bound to happen and
everybody has a different trigger.”
The organizing committee worked
to anticipate those triggers. “For in-
stance, we’re very keen and adamant to
communicate as much information as
we can ahead of time, so that compet-
itors understand their schedule and
what’s going on that day, what they
can expect, and if there’s going to be
loud music,” D’Lima said. “Those are
things that we can communicate with
them throughout the week so they’re
at least prepared for it and it doesn’t
come unexpectedly.”
D’Lima said she hopes the Invictus
Games will bring much-needed aware-
ness of the sacrifices made by service
members and their families. “We do
hope that these games will also shed
a light on the realities of the military
families and provide them with a plat-
form to speak out about the difficul-
ties and to find others that are going
through the same experience,” she said.
“We’ve seen that it is what the games
do provide—an opportunity to connect
with others and really heal together.” ;
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