Team UK gears up for Vancouver/Whistler Invictus Games with final training camp

Team UK wrapped up their final training camp ahead of the Vancouver/Whistler Invictus Games, where a winter sports element will debut for the first time in the competition’s history.

Taking place in Canada’s iconic winter sports destination, the Games will feature a mix of summer and winter events, including skiing, snowboarding, wheelchair curling, skeleton, biathlon, and Nordic skiing.

Steve Hooper, a former Royal Air Force corporal and captain of Team UK, has embraced the winter sport, saying: "The more we enjoy it, the more we're going to remember it, the better it's going to be for us."

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This switch to a hybrid games comes after 10 years of almost exclusively summer sports, but Vancouver Whistler will still feature a number of crowd favourites like swimming, indoor rowing, sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby.

Joanne Whyatt, a 21-year veteran of the British Army's Royal Logistic Corps, will compete in wheelchair rugby at the Games.

After being medically discharged as a staff sergeant due to injury, she has found a renewed sense of purpose through Invictus.

"So I used to enjoy running. That's out. I played. I played hockey. I loved hockey and I needed to find something that gave me that aggression and drive the high, you know, that you get, and that's what I found with wheelchair rugby," SSgt Whyatt said.  

Team UK proudly boasts several highly experienced competitors within their ranks, and the winter sports will be very competitive when you’ve got the likes of the host country Canada to consider.

Team UK travel to Canada at the start of February where they'll meet 23 nations and over 500 competitors from across the Invictus world.