A touching scene unfolded at the Invictus Games Tuesday evening after Prince Harry knelt down to present U.K. athlete Mark Ormrod, who lost both legs and an arm, with a silver medal after the indoor rowing event.
Ormrod, a former Royal Marine Commando, received the medal from the Prince, who also offered a heartfelt handshake. Canadian Michael Trauner, a double amputee who lost both his legs from a rocket-propelled grenade, took the gold medal in the Men’s IR1 four-minute endurance.
Kensington Palace, the Royal official Twitter feed, later posted messages saying it was Harry’s ‘honour’ to award ‘the incredible’ Ormrod with his medal. They also posted a video of Ormrod celebrating with his son and daughter after taking the silver.
Ormrod was severely injured on Christmas Eve in 2007 after stepping on an Improvised Explosive Device while on a routine foot patrol in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. The blast from the IED resulted in him losing both legs above the knee and one of his arms above the elbow.
Ormrod is one of 90 athletes representing the U.K. at the third Invictus Games in Toronto, where he is competing in rowing, swimming, and the hand bike events.
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Prince Harry, a former captain in the British army, founded the games in 2014 as a way to showcase the “unconquered spirit” of wounded soldiers from several nations, using the Latin word ‘Invictus’ meaning ‘Unconquered.’
Toronto’s games will be the largest in the history of the sporting event, with more than 550 athletes from 17 countries competing in 12 sports this year.
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Ormrod was the first U.K. triple amputee to survive the Afghanistan conflict, and he first met Harry in 2008 at Headley Court, the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, where he spent nine weeks recovering.
When training for the Games, Ormrod credited being involved with the competitive sports — none of which he was involved with prior to his injury — as a major part of his recovery following his devastating injury.
“The support since making the team has been phenomenal from everybody from my wife, my children from my friends, my family,” he told the British Forces Broadcasting Service. “My one regret is that I didn’t get into this a lot sooner, not just the Invictus Games but, prior to that, any kind of sport.
“Because it’s had a profoundly positive impact on my recovery.”
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