Invictus Athlete With Incurable Cancer: Prince Harry Is Brother in Arms

Ashley Christman, an active duty Major in the United States Marine Corps and first-time athlete at the Prince Harry-founded Invictus Games, has so much to celebrate.

At this year’s games in Whistler and Vancouver, Canada, Christman, 45, competed in skeleton, swimming, indoor rowing and the women’s biathlon — winning a silver medal in the biathlon and scoring her personal best in all four swimming events she competed in.

And she scored those triumphs amid an ongoing battle with a rare, incurable form of cancer.

Following a 2021 diagnosis, Christman underwent a grueling series of surgeries and treatments — nearly dying on three occasions in 2023. But in between chemotherapy, radiation and other measures to save her life, Christman discovered and excelled in adaptive sports for wounded and injured servicemembers and veterans via Marine Corps Trial games and the DoD’s Warrior Games. Her achievements included a silver medal in the 2024 Warrior Games’ Ultimate Champion competition, which tasks competitors with eight different sports.

“Having the adaptive sports pipeline while I was undergoing my medical battle — and still am undergoing my medical battle — has been such a driver to help me thrive and not just survive,” Christman told Us Weekly at the Vancouver Convention Center on Saturday, February 15.

“I don’t want to be a cancer survivor. I want to be a cancer thriver. For me, there isn’t a cure, and I have to spend every day like this might be my last good day, and do everything I can to make it so,” she said.

That all led to Christman making Team United States for the Invictus Games 2025. “That was so positively overwhelming. Marines, we wear two family names on our uniform — for me it says ‘Christman,’ and then it says U.S. Marines,” she explained. “The threat of not being able to have that uniform makes us feel like we’re losing a family, we’re losing a community. This is a reminder that we’re still part of that family, even if the uniform changes into a jersey. We still have opportunities to represent our country and wear that United States on our uniform again. It’s been an incredible driver for me, for my health, for my mental strength, emotional strength — there’s more out there to do.”

Christman called her first Invictus Games “a beautiful experience.”

“When we get to come together, these are our brothers and sisters in arms from around the world, from 23 different countries, and we get to reunite after having served in some of the most austere, challenging environments in the world, and come together in a place of peace and a place of love and a place of embracing one another,” she continued. “It’s just about as close to world peace as you can get.”

Christman has high praise for Prince Harry, who founded the Games in 2014. “He has a history of service as well, which is what inspired him to hold true to his brothers and sisters in arms with this organization. It still feels like he is just one of my brothers in arms,” she said. “We are grateful to him and really appreciate him reaching out to us to bring this community together.”

Like the rest of Team USA, Christman met Harry, 40, and wife Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, at a private lunch at the beginning of the Games. “They are incredible human beings, full of love, full of generosity, full of compassion. They have taken the time on multiple occasions to visit with us and come out and see us compete, and every time, they’ve been very approachable and just warm, you know? It just feels like they are also part of that family.”

When the Games wrap on Sunday, February 16, Christman plans to return to work at Camp Pendelton in California. “Every day I wake up, I just hope to make a meaningful contribution,” she told Us. I am going to give my life to my country, and I want to do it on my terms, where I get to continue to give to my country every day until that happens.