ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. The History, Culture and Sociology of Sports
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1609967
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Cost of War: Sociological Approaches to the Societal and Individual Wounds of CombatView all 24 articles
Understanding the role of Invictus Games in supporting the transition for UK Disabled
Provisionally accepted
- 1Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom
- 2University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, Scotland, United Kingdom
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This paper will explore how engaging in sport and physical activity (PA) can impact physically disabled veterans who have left the Armed Forces and emphasise the importance of maintaining independence for veterans with disabilities. Eight veterans (five women and three men) with a physical disability were recruited via the Wounded, Injured and Sick (WIS) Invictus Games (IG) Foundation page. The qualitative semi-structured interviews studied their experience in sport and PA and transitioning out of the Armed Forces. Data were analysed using narrative analysis. Caddick's theoretical framework was used to explore and analyse the presence of four core veteran narratives in distinct narrative types; 'struggling against decline', 'minimization', 'victimhood' and 'life-as-normal'. A further new novel narrative category was also heard in our stories and data, which was previously absent. This novel narrative was referred to as 'getting on with it' and was also found to be prominent in the data. The study provides insight into the experiences of veterans with disabilities and the role of sport and PA in their transition into civilian life. The findings suggest that promoting sport and PA and providing opportunities for participation in sporting events can be an effective tool in supporting veterans, providing recommendations for future work around disabled veterans engagement in sport and physical activity, specifically the IG global event movement.
Keywords: Sport, military, Invictus games, physical activity, Narrative analysis
Received: 11 Apr 2025; Accepted: 28 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mackintosh, Reavill, O'Hanlon and Roberts. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chris Mackintosh, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom
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