Still Standing: How sport helped veteran Andi Kauer rebuild  

When Andira (Andi) Kauer learned she had been selected as one of just 20 competitors named to the Australian team for the Invictus Germany Sports Festival 2026, she felt something she hadn’t experienced in a long time.

“I was so excited to be on the team and be a part of this wonderful program,” Andi said.

For the 50-year-old from Mordialloc, Victoria, the moment marked a turning point in a long journey of recovery, reconnection and rebuilding her identity.

And by the end of day two in Düsseldorf, that journey had reached a powerful new chapter.

Competing in spinning, Andi claimed a bronze medal for Team Australia. She then joined her teammates on the sitting volleyball court, where Team Australia progressed all the way to the gold medal match against Ukraine, ultimately taking home silver.

It was a significant moment for the team, marking the first time Team Australia has reached a team sport gold medal match at an Adaptive Sports Program event since the Invictus Games Sydney 2018.

For Andi, the results were meaningful, but the experience of being part of the team meant even more.

“The whole team have been phenomenal. I love being with them and don’t want to leave them,” Andi said.

“The other countries have been so welcoming, I have made some lifelong friends. This has been lifechanging.”

Andi’s story of service begins in 1995, when she enlisted in the Australian Army. She served as a driver with 26 Transport Squadron (ARA), later joining the Reserves with JMCO Melbourne and 3MP at Simpson Barracks.  

Across these roles, she carried responsibility far beyond the wheel, supporting operations, moving personnel and equipment, and ensuring the mission continued no matter the conditions. 

Her service was defined by loyalty and mateship, but it also came with profound cost.  

Andi sustained significant physical injuries, including long‑term damage to her shoulder, knee, hips, back, and lower legs. Along with long-term chronic pain, she also carried psychological wounds that would follow her long after leaving uniform. These injuries ultimately led to her medical discharge in 2010.   

Leaving the Army meant losing not only a career, but a community. The sudden absence of structure and purpose left Andi navigating a difficult landscape of PTSD, depression, and anxiety.  

“The pain I carried was not only physical, but emotional and mental, affecting every part of my life long after my service ended,” Andi said.  

For her wife Maria and their two boys, Maxx and Jaime, the journey through recovery became a shared one. A common experience for families of ADF personnel and veterans, which reinforces the need for programs that embrace the entire family unit.  

For many veterans, this loss of identity is a silent struggle. Nearly 20 percent experience loneliness, and 10 percent report social isolation after transitioning out of service.  

Research commissioned by Invictus Australia mimics what Andi experienced, that these feelings are closely linked to poorer mental health outcomes. But it also shows something else: sport can be a powerful antidote. In fact, physically active veterans have a 40 percent higher likelihood of overcoming mental health challenges.  

This was true for Andi, with sport becoming a lifeline. She had grown up kayaking and riding horses, later representing Victoria in canoe polo and even playing for Australia in 2017. When her injuries made that impossible, she shifted to Wheelchair AFL, earning accolades with both the RSL and Hawthorn teams.

Most recently, she discovered sitting volleyball – an adaptive sport that reconnected her with the defence community in ways she didn’t expect. 

“Being involved in sports has given me a new goal and new challenges. It helped me find my assistance dog, and a feeling of family again. After discharge, I had lost my army family. Now I have a new sports family,” she said.   

This sense of belonging is exactly what Invictus Australia works to cultivate. The organisation delivers year‑round, evidence-backed programs that use sport as a tool for recovery and reconnection and since inception its supported almost 30,000 veterans and families nationwide.

“Just being on the team is winning for me,” Andi said.  

Her goal is simple: to show the world that veterans are “more than our injuries,” and to stand proudly alongside teammates who share the same courage to keep going. 

“My story is not one of defeat,” she says. “It is one of service. It is one of sacrifice. It is one of survival.” 

And in Germany, Andi is carrying that story with her while inspiring others to do the same.