Leaving on a high

Returning competitor, Andrew Tebbit, will be leaving Invictus Games Düsseldorf 2023 on a high note.

Andrew, who participated in the games held at The Hague in April last year, will depart with a sense of accomplishment, satisfied in the knowledge he has achieved his personal goals.

“I’m going to leave knowing that the Invictus Games has done what it needed to do for me. I will be moving on to bigger and better things,” Andrew said.

“Even if I were to be eligible for a third go, I wouldn’t do it. Yes, I am exhausted – doing two games in consecutive years has been physically and mentally draining – but really it’s because it wouldn’t be fair on other people who need this experience more than I do.”

He spent 15 years in the Australian Army working as a combat engineer, fire fighter and training to be an explosive ordnance disposal technician before being medically discharged in 2015.

Andrew said his interest in the games was in hopes that it would change him.

“I didn’t have a good experience on the way out [of Army] and quickly declined mentally, so once I got out I just wanted to disappear. I wanted to shut the military out of my life,” he said.

“On top of that, my life was getting very stagnant and revolved around very similar sorts of things.

“I was hoping my involvement with the Invictus Games would allow me to open up a bit more and not be a recluse or a hermit.”

It was an encounter with a Paralympian rather than a veteran that led to his Invictus journey.

“I heard from a Paralympian who just happened to live around the corner from me,” Andrew said.

“I thought you had to know how to play the sports in order to get involved; I had absolutely no idea.”

Once Andrew got a taste for wheelchair rugby through training sessions with the Australian Paralympic wheelchair rugby team, things changed.

“Getting involved with them, getting excitement from them, training with them – it sparked a fire within me,” he said.

“I got a sense of achievement out of playing; a purpose. Your mind goes elsewhere and you’re solely focused on what you are doing in the moment.

“I enjoyed it because there’s no time to feel sorry for yourself.”

This has led to Andrew trying his hand at other sports, like indoor rowing and cycling.

Swimming, running and entering triathlons and biathlons are also on his radar once he has recovered from further surgery on his leg in October.

“An implant in my leg has come loose and needs to be removed and I’m looking at getting another prosthesis, maybe even a running blade,” Andrew said.

“I’ve already found a cycling and triathlon club in Port Macquarie. I’ve just got to get better at my swimming, but once my leg is healed and I’m ready to go, I’ll get stuck in.”

So far, Andrew has collected medals in all the events he has contested: a gold medal in the men’s IR7 four-minute endurance indoor rowing event, a silver in the men’s IR7 one-minute sprint indoor rowing event and a bronze medal in the wheelchair rugby.

He will contest one of the final sports of the games, cycling, on September 15.