Team Afghanistan won one silver and one bronze medal in men’s light weight powerlifting event at the Invictus Games 2017 in Toronto on Tuesday.

Mohammad Essa Akbari won silver in the men’s lightweight match while Nasir Ahmad Halimi won bronze in the same category.

The seven-member Afghan team, sent by the Ministry of Defense, will compete in volleyball and bodybuilding events on Wednesday. 

The Invictus Games is an international paralympic-style multi-sport event for armed services personnel.

The Afghan team trained hard to make it to the games and the seven athletes were selected from a total of 70. This is the biggest team Afghanistan has sent to date.

This is the third Invictus Games, an initiative started in 2014 by Britain’s Prince Harry.

This year’s games are being hosted by Toronto and 550 athletes from 17 countries will take part in the eight day event.

The athletes will compete in 12 adaptive sports including archery, athletics, indoor rowing, powerlifting, road cycling, sitting volleyball, swimming, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis and wheelchair rugby. Also, new to the sports line up will be golf.

There will also be a demonstration match of sledge hockey. All competitions will take place in state-of-the-art sport venues throughout Toronto.

The 2017 Games will introduce the first-ever Invictus Games relay, igniting the Invictus Games spirit across all 32 Canadian military bases and neighbouring communities.