Former Wales star Parks set for ultimate challenge

THE date was May 12, 2009, and Richard Parks sat at home a depressed and angry man.

The previous day, Parks had been forced to call time on a rugby career that had been his life for more than a decade.

The former Pontypridd and Dragons back-row forward had undergone a second operation to repair his battered shoulder, but it wasn’t enough.

From now on, there would be no rugby.

All the four-times capped Welshman could do was bitterly reflect on a career cut short at 31, his international ambitions far from fulfilled.

To this day, he can barely bring himself to watch the game he once adored.

“It was a really difficult time for me,” Parks admitted.

“In some ways I’d been institutionalised by rugby. I was so lucky and grateful to be able to earn a living doing something that I loved, but it controlled everything – when I ate, when I slept, when I went out. It was my whole life really.

“Then, almost overnight, I didn’t have that anymore. It was scary.

“I was angry at the time because I don’t feel I achieved everything I wanted to in the game.

“I really believed I was good enough, and I really wanted to play for Wales again.

“That was why I came back to the Dragons from Perpignan, but I wasn’t able to do it.

“I know I’m no different from anyone else. A lot of people in this climate have had to face similar things.

“Loads of people have been made redundant or had to reassess their direction in life, even my brother is going through it at the moment.

“But I was genuinely scared about the future. It was difficult to accept my career had been taken away from me.”

It is a sad, increasingly familiar tale of the modern rugby player left broken by the brutal nature of the game.

But there is nothing familiar, nothing ordinary about what Parks chose to do next.

Little more than a year on from the darkness, Parks is approaching final preparations for one of the most daunting challenges ever attempted.

The 737 Challenge will see him take on a seven-month expedition to climb the seven greatest summits on earth.

He will also venture the last two degrees of the South Pole, the last degree of the North Pole and climb the unofficial “third pole” of Mount Everest.

The first leg, beginning in December, sees Parks take on the hostile conditions of the South Pole.

Then he will climb Mount Vinson in Antarctica, Aconcagua in South America, Kilimanjaro in Kenya, and Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia. From there, it is hiking and swimming through the North Pole, onwards to the 29,000ft summit of Everest, before climbs of Mount Denali in Alaska and finally Mount Elbrus in Russia

Such an adventure, in such a time frame, has never been attempted before.

If Parks is successful, he will return a hero. If he is anything less than fully prepared, he may not return at all.

“I am training hard to make sure I come back to Wales alive,” he said.

“I don’t really dwell on the danger too much. I’m respectful of the environment I’m entering and I’ve devoted the last year to training expeditions so I’m not intimidated by it.

“I’ve had to have difficult conversations with mum and dad.

“I told them they were allowed to ask me any questions about the dangers before last Christmas, and we did have some very frank conversations.

“But, after that, I said I would not talk about it and we haven’t to be honest. I’m sure they have moments of worry, but I’m taking it very seriously.”

Parks will be joined along the way by Olympic rower Steve Williams, and the great Sir Ranulph Fiennes for the final stage of his journey. Indeed, it is Fiennes’ own spirit of adventure that inspired Parks to fill the void in his life with something truly extraordinary.

He was captivated by the tales from the great explorer’s book – Mad, Bad And Dangerous To Know – but it is his own graft and dedication that has made this next chapter of his life a possibility.

Along with the gruelling physical expeditions and mental deprivation training exercises, Parks spends most of his time canvassing for support and sponsors as he looks to make up the £200,000 shortfall in the cost of his journey.

He has sold almost all his possessions, moved back home with his parents, Derek and Lee, and ploughed every last penny of his £39,000 career savings into this challenge. He also aims to raise £1m for Marie Curie cancer care.

Physically Parks is a different animal to the young, all-action flanker who graced the turf of Sardis Road in the early years of this century, alongside the likes of Gethin Jenkins and Ceri Sweeney.

The trademark locks are long gone and he is nearly three stone lighter than his rugby fighting weight.

Those days at Pontypridd are the ones he remembers most fondly. It’s the time that best represents everything he lost a little over 12 months ago.

“Ponty was about coming of age as a player, playing with some of the best players of a generation and getting my first Wales cap,” Parks said.

“I don’t think we realised quite how lucky we were. It was great times because we were all great mates off the field as well as on it.

“Being part of a team is something that is so important to me and I don’t think I realised quite how important it was until I’d lost it.”

While Parks may have represented the ultimate team player in the dressing room, the next year of his life is all about Richard Parks himself.

Until May last year, the focus was simply on winning more caps for his country.

Now it is about survival in the planet’s most hostile environments, about setting himself a challenge, and this time, refusing to be beaten.

“The reason for attempting this isn’t to forge myself a new career,” he said.

“I felt that I needed to test myself in order to answer some questions about myself.

“The two feelings that stick with me from last year are fear and anger, and I guess this challenge is a reply to those emotions in some way.

“We can’t go back, but we can control how we respond to challenges in life.

“This is my response to losing my rugby career.

“I do believe I gave my best 99 per cent of the time, but the nature of humans is to always question whether we should have done things better.

“I hope that when I have completed this it will allow me to close the door on rugby and move on.”

Parks celebrates his 33rd birthday today.

Perhaps, by the time he is 34, this great adventurer will be able to face watching a game of rugby once again.

• For more information on Richard Parks’ 737 Challenge, visit www.737challenge.com