A sporting extravaganza gets underway Saturday in Toronto when some 550 athletes from 17 countries parade into the Air Canada Centre for the opening ceremonies of the Invictus Games.
In the stands will be celebrities ranging from Prince Harry of Wales, who founded the Games in 2014 and hosted the first edition of the competition in London the same year, to former U.S. President Barack Obama and current U.S. first lady Melania Trump.
Sarah McLachlan, Alessia Cara, The Tenors, Laura Wright and La Bottine Souriante will perform, but most spectators are there to honour the athletes, all of whom are wounded and sick soldiers, including some current members of their countries’ armed forces.
Over the next week, they will compete in 12 sports, including track and field, swimming and golf.
After a year off, last year’s Games were staged in Orlando, Florida.
Sydney, Australia will host the 2018 Games.
With files from CBC, CTV, Toronto Star
Invictus, the poem by the William Ernest Henley, for which the Games are named was written in 1875 and first published in 1888:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
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