![\"\"](%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/echowoven.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2025%5C/02%5C/475757487_642523834946454_7080292500878692758_n.png%5C%22 "\\"\\"")
\n\n
The 2025 Invictus Games officially kicked off in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada, with a grand opening ceremony lasting two and a half hours, beginning at 9 PM GMT. \n The international sporting event, founded by Prince Harry in 2014 for wounded, injured, and sick servicemen and women, has brought together over 500 athletes from 23 countries.\n From now until February 16, competitors will take part in traditional Invictus sports, including indoor rowing, sitting volleyball, swimming, wheelchair rugby, and wheelchair basketball. This year, the Games have also introduced winter sports such as alpine skiing, snowboarding, Nordic skiing and biathlon, skeleton (a form of sledding), and wheelchair curling.\n The opening ceremony drew a sold-out crowd of 40,000 spectators, featuring performances from Coldplay\u2019s Chris Martin, Nelly Furtado, and Katy Perry. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were also in attendance, making a highly anticipated appearance.\n \n Meghan Markle took to Instagram Stories to share behind-the-scenes moments from the Invictus Games. In one post, she and Harry were seen visiting the Squamish Nation, with Meghan captioning the story, \u201cThank you for welcoming us on your sacred land.\u201d She also posted clips from an outdoor ceremony held in the chilly Whistler weather, where she seemed to be enjoying the event to the fullest.\n While Meghan appeared to be fully engaged in the excitement, Prince Harry took center stage with a warm introduction from Canadian singer Michael Bubl\u00e9, who even performed a brief riff of “Feeling Good.”\n Harry jokingly told the crowd, \u201cWell, thank God Michael Bubl\u00e9 sang. Can you imagine bringing him out here and him saying, \u2018You know what? I didn\u2019t come here to sing…\u2019 Thank you for the introduction.\u201d\n He also gave a playful shoutout to Whistler\u2019s mayor, Jack Crompton, referring to him as \u201cmy ginger friend\u201d before asking the audience, \u201cAre there any other gingers in the house?\u201d\n Expressing his gratitude, Harry added, \u201cThank you all so much for the love and support for these incredible athletes. You all came up here knowing you were going to get cold, so thank you for the support!\u201d\n In a heartfelt moment, Harry called Meghan to join him on stage, saying, \u201cMy wife and I\u2014come on out here! Come on!\u201d As she stepped up beside him, they wrapped their arms around each other, and Harry playfully added, \u201cNow she\u2019s going to sing!\u201d\n The 2025 Invictus Games will continue until February 16, concluding with a closing ceremony at Vancouver\u2019s Rogers Arena.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2025 Invictus Games officially kicked off in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada, with a grand opening ceremony lasting two and a half hours, beginning at 9 PM GMT. The international sporting event, founded by Prince Harry in 2014 for wounded, injured, and sick servicemen and women, has brought together over 500 athletes from 23 countries. …\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":99838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1442,670],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99841,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99837\/revisions\/99841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Meghan\u2019s Social Media Highlights\n
Prince Harry\u2019s Speech and Playful Banter\n
![\"\"](%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/echowoven.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2025%5C/02%5C/476187399_1042226841411465_3374284681844414525_n.png%5C%22 "\\"\\"")
\n