words Hamish Stuart


Richard Parks looked up round the clean, classy and, above all, safe surroundings of the Senedd building in Cardiff Bay to seek inspiration in answering the trickiest question.


Why do sportsmen who have reached the top in their chosen fi eld, then decide to take on even greater and, above all, more dangerous challenges once they have retired?


A few months after former England and Lions back Josh Lewsey failed to climb Mount Everest, Parks is to make that attempt as well - but only as one small part of his 737 Challenge, along with former Olympic rowing gold medallist Steve Williams who in turn is copying the example of James Cracknell in taking on the unknown.


However Parks will be the only one attempting the full 737 Challenge, the highest mountains in seven continents, plus the three Poles (Everest doubles up apparently) in seven months. If he succeeds he will become the fi rst person in the world to have done so, while also aiming to raise £1million for Marie Curie Cancer Care.


If he needed a reminder of the scale of the task in the modern era, he is setting off from the same Cardiff starting point exactly 100 years after Captain Robert Falcon Scott began his ill-fated journey to the South Pole on December 12th 1910.


To paraphrase the words of Captain Oates on that trek, Parks will be gone for some time as he goes from challenge to challenge. The scale of the task is incredible if everything works like clockwork, which is pretty unlikely in the world of extremes that he will be entering.


For instance, to meet the tight time schedule he may need to swim part of the way to the North Pole. That is a sentence worth reading again, before shivering!


It is a challenge beyond physical fi tness, certainly beyond the toughest rugby opposition the fl anker faced in his four caps for Wales, against Ireland, Scotland, South Africa and Fiji, or his club career for such teams as Pontypridd, Leeds and Newport Gwent Dragons.


Which brings us back to our starting point. Why do they do it?


“I have had to learn skills that will mean returning alive”


“That is a really good question,” admitted Parks, during the offi cial launch of the 737 Challenge held in the Senedd home of the Welsh Assembly Government.


“I cannot speak for anyone else, but it is a mixture of fate and the people I have met which has led me to this.


“After my second shoulder operation I was lying in a hospital bed and was feeling pretty sorry for myself, low, angry and frustrated that my rugby career was over because of that injury.


“I did not really know what to do and being scared was the biggest emotion. However at that time I was reading a book by explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and also a sentence from my grandmother's funeral struck a chord with me – the horizon is only the limit of our sight.


“They became intertwined and gave me the idea of testing myself in a completely different arena and hopefully, by doing that, to close the door on my rugby career.


“The different people I have met along the journey have given me the ideas to evolve the challenge to what it is now, because until that moment I had never even dreamt of climbing a mountain.


sportingwales issue12twothousand&ten


“The bizarre thing is that there is no pre- requisite for performance at altitude. For me it has been a mammoth challenge on a lot of levels.


“I have had to learn an incredible amount of technical skills and survival skills at altitude and in the extreme environments I am going to, which will not only lead to the success of the challenge but ultimately mean me returning alive.


“It is something I am really respectful of and the risks I am attempting, plus no matter how well prepared I am the weather might prevent things, but I am not fearful of that - in fact that is the challenge that I am relishing.


“I am really conscious of the history of Polar travel and the people who have paved the way for me – and the North Pole will be one of the cruxes of the challenge, if not the crux, because it has the highest risk of a frost injury and we might have to swim in between icebergs.


“Last week I spent three days at the University of Portsmouth doing cold water tests, which was pretty miserable actually but will help prepare me if I need to do it.”


Now for the schedule and the geography lesson – especially for those of us who thought there were fi ve continents and two poles.


At the end of this year Parks will set off for the same South Pole destination as Captain Scott, but getting there on skis. Then he will climb Mount Vinson in Antartica, then Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia (Oceania), Kilimanjaro in Kenya (Africa) with Marie Curie nurse Jan Suart.


That is followed by Aconcagua, South America, before the tough leg starts. The


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52