Prince Harry has been recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in sports.
The Duke of Sussex was named on Tuesday among other sports leaders and athletes — including Lindsey Vonn, LeBron James, Lionel Messi, Caitlin Clark, Mike Tirico and Jack Hughes — for his work with the Invictus Games, an adaptive sports contest founded by Harry for wounded, ill or injured service members.
“Sport held me together,” Harry told the outlet.
“I was one of those kids at school who did not enjoy classroom work. If it wasn’t for the sports field, and the amount of sports that were on offer, there’s no way I would have stayed in school.”
Months after completing his second combat tour in Afghanistan, Harry lit the cauldron at the 2013 Warrior Games, a sports competition hosted by the U.S. Department of Defense for wounded service members and veterans. His experience at the event inspired the concept for an international, multisport event for injured service members.
“I thought, ‘Wow, look at the power of sport, look at how it is literally changing lives in front of my very eyes,’” Harry said. “It was so clear to me. Let’s invite as many countries as possible to make it international, because clearly more countries need to benefit from this.”
Within a year, Harry launched the Invictus Games in London. The games have since been held in Orlando, Toronto, Sydney, The Hague, Düsseldorf, Vancouver and Whistler. In 2027, the event will be hosted in Birmingham, England — which will welcome roughly 550 athletes from around 25 countries, where they will introduce new sports to the games, including esports, laser run and pickleball.
“What we’ve managed to achieve through Invictus over the years is not only to give people their purpose and their meaning back, but give them their identity back,” Harry said.
He hopes to continue expanding the games, and is currently eyeing an extension from a one-week event to a two-week one.
To be amongst that community, those are the moments that I cherish,” he said. “You wish that every society, every community, had this same vibe about it.”
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