Prince Harry’s Invictus Games have been a huge triumph since they were launched back in 2014 - but Harry’s good friend and a director at the Invictus Games Foundation, David Wiseman, revealed that he was caught somewhat off guard when Harry went 'rogue' while discussing the timeline of the event’s first-ever launch.
Chatting on HELLO!’s A Right Royal Podcast, David spoke about how they were inspired after visiting the Warrior Games, a US-based event for injured service personnel and veterans, with Harry wanting to "internationalise" the games.
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He explained: "The morning after, we were sitting in a hotel in Colorado, reflecting on what we’d just seen. We were sitting down at breakfast, it wasn’t a meeting or anything like that, and Harry said, 'Look, this is absolutely brilliant, what we’ve seen here is absolutely brilliant. What we need to do is internationalise this. We need to invite allies and nations from all over the world, we’re going to put it in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, it needs to be on the BBC, this is going to be massive, we’ll have a closing concert. He could see it before anyone else could."
He added: "Anyone who sits back and is a bit disparaging… from my personal experience he has been the visionary from the very beginning and has been incredibly involved and incredibly proud of his involvement in it."
Speaking about how his royal pal went "rogue", he continued: "We didn’t realise the time frame that he made in mind. Bearing in mind that was May 2013, we went back to the Warrior Games that afternoon, and he stood on stage at the podium, and I think it had been written in his speech, that vision to say, ’Look, we’d like to do this,' I think he’d added his own note that said 'next year'.
"He went rogue! We were like, 'What? Next year?' For a long time, there were three or four of us at the Royal Foundation managing this project. September 2014, we were there, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, it might have been by the skin of our teeth but we were there!" For the Invictus Games launch in 2014, there were nine nations involved, with Jill Biden attending as a US delegate, and the Foo Fighters performing at the closing concert - so a huge success all around! David added: "It was massive and we pulled that all together from May 2013 to September 2014."
David was additionally full of praise for how personable Harry is, adding: "He fits in, he’s a fun guy, and he fits in with that army environment… I only ever see him through that sense but I’ve been on enough engagements with him with civilians and you can see he settles in with military or veteran companionship."