News
Monday, 7 April 2008
Cooktown Thai boxer Joel Mitchell will cross sports this weekend to take on the far north’s best boxers at the North Queensland Games.
It was hard to find Thai boxing opponents for the talented 13-year-old who was ranked one of the top Thai boxers in Australia for his age and weight, trainer Vince Parkes said.
Mr. Parkes and Joel will travel to the games in Townsville this weekend, where Joel could have up to four fights over two days to potentially be named the Far North Queensland gold medalist.
The bouts would be a good warm up for Joel’s upcoming fight against his second international opponent – flown in from Thailand – in Cairns on May 31, Mr. Parkes said.
Also fighting his first international bout in Cairns will be former local lad Ayde ‘Prickles’ Walker.
Thailand, November/December 2007
As we left Cooktown early on Saturday morning, the excitement was high.
The four hour drive to Cairns, and rushing around Cairns Central buying last minute essentials killed the expectation though.
We were super organised, buying travel pillows, locks for our bags and snacks for the aeroplane.
We flew from Cairns to Brisbane that afternoon, and by the time our flight to Thailand was boarding, at midnight, the excitement had dulled into red eyes and grumpiness.
The nine and a half hour flight in economy did nothing for our moods either, and we all discovered travel pillows aren’t all their cracked up to be!
But then the seatbelt lights went on and the captain welcomed us to Thailand.
Suddenly, the excitement was back, in full force.
The kids were peering out the plane windows, telling one another they could see elephants already.
We were blown away by the size of the airport - the massive concrete structures looked like something out of the movie Robots.
As we walked out of customs, we were greeted by a wall of people, held back by flimsy ropes, all trying to drag us off to a different hotel, taxi or bus.
We had travelled from Brisbane with another group of fighters, and one of them knew the name of the hotel we were supposed to be staying at.
Which was just as well, because the promised person to pick us up at the airport was not there.
As we drove out of the airport, on a series of giant overpasses and freeways, it could almost have been Cairns, except for the smog.
But then we would look down and see people living on the river in tiny floating huts, or a temple, and it would really hit us again - we were in Thailand!
And like something straight out of a movie, our minibus driver was juggling the three lanes of traffic at 140km per hour, while chatting and fiddling with the car radio.
We all nervously cracked jokes about dying in car crashes, and someone said “There are less crashes in Thailand than Australia”.
We felt a little bit better.
Then we were in the city proper, and culture shock really started to kick in.
There were dogs all over the streets, and everything is grubby, and smoggy.
There are contrasts everywhere, like the hotel we arrived at.
We turned into a hideous back alley, with rubbish, running gutters and broken concrete and tiles.
And at the end of the alley was an enormous, plush, palace-like hotel, with doormen, golden statues and thick, red carpet.
We unloaded our enormous bags and struggled in, only to be told that we were at the wrong hotel, and a bus had been sent to the airport to pick us up.
So someone contacted the bus, and we waited for it to come back for us, so we could be shipped off to another hotel, the Chaleena.
We were quite excited at the Chaleena hotel, it seemed even more ostentatious than the first one.
But the slick foyer lasted only to the first flight of stairs, where shining marble gave way to tacky, stained carpet, and cheap wallpaper.
We were escorted to our rooms by a smiling bellboy, who then apologised about the noisy airconditioner and broken lights, before leaving us on our own.
The kids were looking a little bit shell-shocked, and I was feeling that way too.
We managed a shower, not looking to closely at the cockroach droppings and mould.
At least our rooms were airconditioned, and at last we could have a decent sleep, lying flat on our backs, instead of crammed into a plane seat.
I woke up and thought we had slept for hours.
I was sure it was dark outside, and said so to Vince, who just laughed at me.
Apparently the time zones make you feel like that.
It was only midday, so we headed out to find bottled water to hydrate the troops.
It was my first time really out in the city, and it was nice.
What we had mistaken for rubbish floating in the river on our way to the motel, turned out to be offerings of some sort, little rafts of banana leaves and flowers.
We spot similar things all along the streets, and little candles, cups of water and dishes of food.
Despite the grotty air and streets, the people seemed normal and happy, and the dogs looked a lot better than some of the neglected creatures walking the streets of Cooktown.
One big, white male took umbrage with Vince, and followed him up the street barking.
We kept thinking about rabies, and when a second dog joined in, and took a lunge at Vince, we turned and screamed at them.
They backed off quickly, and a watching man laughed at us.
Vince and I were wearing our Thai boxing shorts, but I won’t do that again, unless I am actually training.
People openly stared, especially at me, and quite a few laughed at us.
I suppose they think we are just dumb tourist pretending to look like locals - which I guess we are in a way!
Loaded with bottles of water, which we bought at a 7-11 (yes, they have 7-11 stores in Thailand) for about 50 cents each, we trekked back to the Chaleena.
I stopped at another 7-11 briefly on the way back to find some sunscreen, which was hard with all the labels in Thai.
Back at the motel we were stoked to find TV channels with English movies on them, which occupied us for another few hours.
We hear that the fighters have to weigh in every day, and the first weigh in will be tomorrow (Monday) afternoon.
So we think the first fights will be Tuesday.
Vince and I spot several little boys about Joel’s size in the foyer with another group of fighters, which is exciting.
We have seen fighters from the Ukraine, Argentina and Finland, among others.
We still haven’t seen anyone official, or been told anything about the fights, so we are just waiting and enjoying the experience.
At least we feel a little more at home having other Caucasian faces around us in the motel, even if none of them speak English.
We keep talking about people speaking Australian, and realise when you are in a foreign country, it does make you feel patriotic, even if you aren’t that way inclined at home.
October 2007
Full Boar Thai Boxing Club trainer Vince Parkes says he was cheated of $1000 in prizemoney after coming out of a decade’s retirement to fight at the weekend.
Parkes, an Oceania champion during his fighting heyday in the late 1990s, took on the eight-man eliminator event in Cairns in a bid to win the $1000 to help send his young protégés to world titles in Thailand next month.
But an “unfair decision scammed the club of the winnings” said Parkes.
Three judges’ scorecards favoured the 36-year-old Parkes as victor against hometown lad ‘Bad’ Ben Paterson.
But the event’s organiser Michael Orec of Cairns First Strike – who was knocked out by Parkes in less than one minute during the event’s opening bout – overruled and awarded the fight to Paterson.
“The promoter didn’t even collect the judges’ scorecards – he just told the announcer to give the money to the other fighter,” said a furious Parkes.
“Orec is a sore loser and gave the fight to Ben because he couldn’t handle being beaten on his own show.”
Full Boar junior students Ethan Ross and Clayton Cook were also scheduled to fight against opponents from Machans Beach Muay Thai – but were told when they arrived that they would have to fight one another if they wanted a match-up in the show.
Young stablemate Stevie Collier had also hoped to be matched up on the night, but refused when the promoter tried to pit her against her club-mates Ethan and Clayton.
Dozens of supporters who travelled from Cooktown to watch the Full Boar fighters perform were left outraged at the evening’s events and vocally vented their disapproval.
“We are now trying to raise $2200 each to send Clayton Cook, Joel Mitchell and Courtney Bird to the Muay Thai World Titles in Thailand at the end of November,” Parkes said.
Australia Day, January 2007
Joel Mitchell and Clayton Cook applaud as trainer Vince Parkes is announced as sportsperson of the year at this January’s Cook Shire Australia Day awards ceremony. Joel and Clayton were dual recipients of the junior sportsperson award.
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