Ex-Wales flanker Richard Parks on ‘dark thoughts’ and going Pole to Pole with Will Smith

Told by a surgeon at the age of 31 that chronic damage to his right shoulder meant he would never play rugby again, former Wales international Richard Parks “fell off the edge of a cliff”. “It was like I was in free fall without anything to grab onto,” the ex-Newport and Pontypridd flanker told the South China Morning Post, adding that his self-worth spiralled as his identity slipped away. “If I wasn’t Richard Parks the rugby player, who was I?” he said. “I always enjoyed being good at something; a big part of that was my physicality, so when my body broke I felt like the human being was broken.” At his lowest ebb, Parks decided that he needed to earn his place on Earth by “surviving something”, an attitude he readily acknowledges was “really dark”. Still, the 48-year-old believes that stark conclusion led him to become a world-leading endurance athlete and polar explorer, and the recent television sidekick of Hollywood superstar Will Smith. “Some of these emotions, even now, are quite difficult to articulate,” Parks said. “Why did I choose mountains? It was the scariest thing I could think of and I needed that.” In July 2011, barely two years after coming around from what he believed was routine surgery only to be informed “your shoulder is f*****, you won’t play rugby again”, Parks completed the 737 Challenge, taking six months, 11 days, seven hours and 53 minutes to scale the highest mountain on each of the world’s seven continents, and standing on the South Pole, North Pole and summit of Everest. “I really enjoyed the physicality and confrontation of rugby, it was a conduit for a lot of negative energy,” Parks said. “When I lost that I had a lot of darkness in me. I’m not a drinker, and I want to put good into the world. But I found myself drinking more and I got into a couple of fights out in town. “I couldn’t articulate my emotions, but I knew I didn’t like how I was behaving or how I was feeling.” Living in his parents’ spare room, Parks picked up the autobiography of explorer Ranulph Fiennes, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, which inspired him to “do something different”. The phrase, “the horizon is only the limit of our sight”, which featured in the eulogy at his grandmother’s funeral and which Parks had tattooed on an arm, was also beginning to resonate. “There were so many forces returning meaning and purpose to my life,” he said. “I hadn’t seen beyond rugby. I left a dental degree to play, I missed my sister’s wedding to win my first Wales cap in South Africa [in June 2002]. Because of rugby’s physical nature you have very intense relationships. “But there was a world beyond that horizon and I realised I needed to step into it, not hide from it.” A back-rower who was capped four times by Wales and also played for Leeds and Perpignan, Parks said his mental health issues caught him by surprise, despite managing “insecurity and mild anxiety” throughout his career. “I think all athletes have an inner monologue that can be a force for good, but also a negative force,” he said. “There were some points when I felt like I was flying and others when I was genuinely f****** terrified to step on the field.” In 2014, Parks became the fastest Briton to complete an unsupported and unassisted journey to the South Pole. Six years later, he established world records for the most journeys and greatest distance – 2,229 miles – skied solo, unsupported and unassisted in Antarctica. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic the following year, Parks was revisited by the mental health issues of more than a decade earlier, suffering an anxiety attack during a live radio interview. “I’d filled a void with something equally intense … then during the second lockdown in the UK we couldn’t really see the end,” he said. “I lost sponsors, and a project I was working on fell away. “I had a lot to be grateful for in that period, my dad and I built the family home I’m now in. He passed away three years ago but I see him every day in everything we did there. “But I really did struggle. I stepped away from social media and stopped my speaking engagements … I needed that final body of work on myself.” Now married to Jo and with a young son, Fred, Parks is conflicted over leaving “my own little bubble that’s the most important thing in the world” to expose himself to danger. “Becoming a father challenged my relationship with risk, though,” he said. “I started out chasing records that were faster, higher and bigger. Now my projects are designed around education, science or legacy.” Even so, next year Parks, whose mother is British-Jamaican and father was Welsh, will embark on an expedition that is “arguably the most perilous I’ve worked on but has the potential to have the biggest impact”. Filming for a documentary called Whiteout, he will retrace black explorer Matthew Henson’s 1909 journey from Ellesmere Island in Canada to the North Pole. “It’s incredibly complex given the geopolitics and the environmental change in the High Arctic,” said Parks, who is aiming to complete the route in 59 days. “We’re shining a light on a story that will enrich us all.” “I grew up with mixed heritage at a time when what it meant to be Welsh wasn’t as clearly understood as it is now. I didn’t always see myself in what was going on around me. I saw myself around people but I was never quite one of them.” Parks found belonging in racing motorbikes; packing up the car with his parents every Friday to travel to race weekends. When financial constraints ended that adventure, he began playing rugby at Rougemont School in Newport. “I loved being part of a team, the brotherhood and camaraderie,” Parks said. “My passion for being part of something bigger stems from that feeling of not belonging when I was younger.” When he looks back on his rugby career, Parks sees “so many missed opportunities that were the result of not being confident enough, or being too scared or too anxious in games or in training”. “That hurts,” he said. “But in nature, the environment is so volatile and dynamic, unlike professional sport, which is so controlled, that you have to be entirely focused on your next action. “That’s allowed me to turn a fear response into a growth response. “Through training and preparing for expeditions, and finding the courage to talk about the things I was scared of, I’ve been able to switch off that fear response most of the time. It’s a wonderful feeling and it’s allowed me confidence in my personal life and outside of expeditions.” Last year, Parks guided Bad Boys and Men In Black star Smith across Antarctica as part of the actor’s quest to travel across all seven continents for a National Geographic documentary that aired this year. “It was the job of my life,” Parks said. “I was proud that I’d developed this craft in the second chapter of my life, and was working at the knife-edge of my profession. It was like being selected for the British & Irish Lions. “Growing up in sport you just take people at face value and don’t deal with airs and graces, but there was definitely anxiety and nerves meeting Will. “His humour immediately broke through all that. He was really easy to be with, and a courageous and inspirational guy. “Will gave me, and everybody who watched the programme, a gift, by showing us all those continents. Despite all the records I have, it was the first time my mum, wife and son had seen what I do, and that’s freaking awesome.”

Ex-Wales flanker Richard Parks on ‘dark thoughts’ and going Pole to Pole with Will Smith

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Forced to retire from rugby, the Welshman emerged from a period of introspection as an adventurer, polar explorer and guide to Hollywood’s A-list

Forced to retire from rugby, the Welshman emerged from a period of introspection as an adventurer, polar explorer and guide to Hollywood’s A-list