Local retired military veteran competing for country in Invictus Games

Mike Bourgeois will be heading to The Hague, Netherlands from Saturday, April 16-22 to compete in the fifth annual Invictus Games.

The Games are a sporting competition for ill, sick and disabled war veterans. It was founded in 2014 from Prince Harry, who wanted to showcase the achievements of war veterans, after he himself was in a helicopter with injured military personnel during the war in Afghanistan.

For Bourgeois, the games presented a life changing opportunity after retiring from the military years ago.

“I spent most of my career as an infantry officer, with employments in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.” Bourgeois told KelownaNow. “(Once I retired), I was very unhealthy. I have spine damage, and I was in a pretty dark place with a lot of pain. I gained a lot of weight and I suffered from an electrical malfunction of my heart, where I wound up in the hospital with a heart attack. That was the ‘aha’ moment, and I came out of the hospital telling myself that I wanted to do something I didn’t know how to do. I needed to take my mind off my life and start something fresh.”

As part of his recovery from the heart attack, Bourgeois was prescribed archery as an outlet to take his mind off of things. Soon enough, after practicing every day for a year, he was asked to compete for the Canadian national team for the Invictus Games. Then, the manager (of the team) asked him to compete in the cycling event as the country was looking for more cyclists.

“I have a type ‘A’ personality, being an army guy,” he said. “I don’t like to do anything and not be great at it… but the cycling was a very steep learning curve, so its been three years of very hard work. I don't think I am going to podium, as I will be going up against high level European athletes, and I am 52!”

Originally from Belleville, Ont, Bourgeois spent the majority of his career as a captain in the infantry. He was a competitive track athlete in his teenage years but had to pause his sporting pursuits due to the demands of the military.

Now, along with cycling and archery, he will also be competing in sitting volleyball. Every member of the national team must compete in a team sport. The total Canadian contingent heading over to The Hague will be 30 and there will be 21 nations at the games, with a total of 10 unique sports.

This year's event was a long time coming, as it was originally supposed to be hosted in 2020 before COVID had it postponed. Prior, there have been games in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

“It is the honour of a lifetime (to be selected), but like everything else that has been affected by the pandemic, it's just been such a long and hard journey,” said Bourgeois. “I think it will be such a relief for us to have it finished, regardless of how everybody does.”