Geoffrey Lewis Humberg Capes JP (23 August 1949 – 23 October 2024) was an English shot putter, strongman, and Highland Games competitor.
He represented England and Great Britain in field athletics, specialising in the shot put, an event in which he was twice Commonwealth champion, twice European indoor champion, competed at three Olympic Games and holds the British record for the shot put since 1980, with a distance of . As a strongman, he won World's Strongest Man twice, and World Muscle Power Classic twice, along with several other titles including Europe's Strongest Man and Britain's Strongest Man. As a Highland Games competitor, he was six times world champion, first winning the title in Lagos in 1981 and the final title in 1987. Throughout his career, Capes set 17 world records.
Following retirement from competitive sport, he continued to be involved in strength athletics as a referee, coach, event promoter, sportswear retailer and became renowned as a world-class breeder of birds.
Early life Capes was born on 23 August 1949 in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, the seventh of nine children.David Webster, Sons of Samson Volume 2 Profiles, page 78 (Ironmind Enterprises), He weighed at birth. He was the seventh child of Eileen (Alcock) Capes, though the eldest of her three children by her third husband Bill Capes. His father was a land worker, while his mother, who stood six feet tall and weighed 17 stone 12 pounds (114 kg), was a matron at a care home. Of his older siblings, the elder two were Braithwaites and the middle four Cannons. Capes told The Daily Telegraph, "The family wasn't just working class, but was on the lowest rung of that very long ladder that is the English class system." He grew up in the town and went to the local secondary school, George Farmer. During his time at school, his behaviour and academic performance were reportedly poor, resulting in frequent caning. On one occasion, a teacher twisted his ear until it bled as punishment for misbehaving in class. The same day, Capes's mother confronted the teacher and punched him.
Capes described himself as a troubled youth and recalled that he was constantly fighting. "If the next town came down on a Friday and there were only eight or nine of them, I'd say, 'Go back and get some more, he told The Daily Telegraph in 2023. "I'd fight them on my own. I was quite quiet but there was an inner aggression." Despite his natural inclination towards physical activities, Capes initially struggled to find success in sports. He faced a one-year ban from a local football team after striking a referee during a match. He left school at 14 to work as a labourer, carrying sacks of potatoes and taking on various odd jobs. At the age of 15, he loaded 20 tons of potatoes onto a lorry in under 20 minutes, just to demonstrate that it could be done. By 16, he had taken on the role of assistant coalman and odd-job worker for a haulier in Lincolnshire. During tea breaks at the haulier's yard, he developed his arm strength by lifting two four-stone weights overhead. He also created a makeshift gymnasium with two friends. During this time, he joined a local athletics club, where he met Stuart Storey, a hurdler who later competed in the 1968 Olympics.
Capes stated that Storey helped him turn his life around and guided him during his early days in athletics. Storey encouraged him to try shot put and participate in competitions. Lacking the means to buy proper clothes, Capes attended events wearing garments left behind by his mother's patients after they died. His first attempt at competitive shot-putting ended with him being placed second-to-last in the finals of the 1964 All England Schools Athletics Championships.
Capes was a gifted sportsman, and represented Lincolnshire at basketball, football and cross-country. In addition he was a decent sprinter, running 23.7 s for the 200 m. Growing up on the Lincolnshire fens he had an early fascination with the natural world and cared for injured birds and animals from when he was a young boy. After school he worked as a coalman and an agricultural labourer. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, uncle and older brothers, he joined Cambridgeshire Constabulary in 1970, and remained in the police for ten years; his departure from the police came when he decided to compete in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, despite the British Government's calls for a boycott, and was thereby forced to resign his position.
Athletics Capes was a shot putter and represented his country over a span of 11 years, winning two Commonwealth Games and two Indoor European Championship titles. His first major competition was the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, where he finished fourth. In the next two games in 1974 and 1978 he took the gold medal. In this period he also became the European Indoor Champion in both 1974 and 1976. His first Olympic experience was in 1972 when he competed in Munich. The 21-year-old Capes did not make it past the qualifying round, but improved on this considerably four years later. Having thrown a personal best of on 28 May 1976 at Gateshead, he went into the 1976 Montreal Olympics as one of the favourites for the gold medal. He came second in his qualifying group but sixth overall in the final, the winner being Udo Beyer of East Germany. 1980 was the year Capes threw the longest distance of his career, in Cwmbran on 18 May 1980 being a new Commonwealth and British record. He went into the Olympics as the athlete with the best distance that year and once again a favourite for the title. However, he eventually placed fifth, the winner being Vladimir Kiselyov whose Olympic record of was well short of what Capes had achieved prior to the Games. Capes said his performance at the 1980 Moscow Olympics had left him "numbed with disappointment"."Geoff Capes: Back to give Britain a shot at the title", The Independent on Sunday, 24 June 2007/
Capes is the most capped British male athlete of all time, receiving 67 International caps and earning 35 wins, not including a further 35 caps for England. He is a winner of 17 national titles, including being seven times a winner of the AAA championship and three times UK champion. In 1983 he was voted Britain's best-ever field athlete. Capes' 1980 British record still stands. In 2003 Carl Myerscough threw but the distance was not ratified.
Colin Bryce, a former Strongman and television commentator for the World's Strongest Man competition, said of Capes in an interview, "When you saw him sprint, you realized just what an absolutely terrifying athlete he was, as in terrifyingly good. He wasn't just a big lump."
Strongman As a strongman, Capes became a household name in Britain and many parts of the world. He was particularly known for his incredible hand and arm strength, easily tearing London telephone directories in half and bending rolled steel bars measuring over 1 inch in diameter, and three feet in length. Capes turned fully professional in 1980, the Olympics in Moscow being his last event as an amateur athlete. He had already begun to make a name as a strongman having won the inaugural Britain's Strongest Man in 1979. In that competition he beat Bill Anderson, the World Highland Games champion into second place. Bill went on to the 1979 World's Strongest Man, the first Briton to compete in this tournament, whilst Capes concentrated on his athletic career.
In 1980 the Olympics dominated the year and Capes did not compete in Britain's Strongest Man, but he did compete later in the Europe's Strongest Man competition and won that. This ensured his invitation to the 1980 World's Strongest Man and on his first entry he came third behind the by then more experienced Bill Kazmaier and Lars Hedlund. In 1981 he returned and improved to second place, again behind Kazmaier, and in 1982 he came fourth.
1983 World's Strongest Man was the first held outside the United States and in Christchurch, New Zealand; he held off the challenge of a world class field including the young Jón Páll Sigmarsson, Canadian world powerlifting champion, Tom Magee, and the European powerlifting champion, Siem Wulfse to take his first World's Strongest Man title. Capes won the truck pull and weight over bar and came second in farmer's walk, bale hoist and sack load events. The duel between Sigmarsson and Capes heralded the beginning of a great rivalry. The following year in Mora, Sweden, Sigmarsson, eleven years Capes' junior, took the title proclaiming "The King has lost his crown!".Webster, page 129 Capes retorted "I'll be back" with a third-place finish. He won the sled push and came second in caber toss, rock press and floor press that year.
Capes came to 1985 World's Strongest Man determined to regain his title from Sigmarsson. The competition was held in Cascais, Portugal and Capes managed to win the truck pull, medley, arm over arm pull and swingletree. Despite a horrible last place finish in the crucifix hold, Capes managed to collect enough points to secure his second World's Strongest Man title, holding off Sigmarsson and Cees de Vreugd. Capes' did not forget to celebrate after the end of the final event, the loading race saying "The King is not dead yet!". Their rivalry thrived and Sigmarsson won once again in 1986 with Capes coming second.
Aside from the World's Strongest Man, Capes also won Europe's Strongest Man three times: in London (1980), Amsterdam (1982) and Marken (1984). He regained his Britain's Strongest Man title in 1981 and again in 1983. Capes also won the World Muscle Power Classic championship in 1987, and was ascribed two World Muscle Power championships by the creator of the event, David Webster, although other sources suggest the 1987 victory was the only one. In 1987 his win in the World Muscle Power was accompanied by a win in the World Strongman Challenge and he is one of only three athletes to have won all three titles. There was no World's Strongest Man that year, but an event was held designed specifically to put the three most successful strongmen against one another.
In 1986, Capes won the UK Truck Pulling Championship.
1987 Pure Strength featured Bill Kazmaier, Jón Páll Sigmarsson and Geoff CapesWebster, pages 170–175 and was held at Huntly Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Capes entered despite having been in hospital the previous weekend with strained trapeziums. Strong performances in the first few rounds belied his condition but he eventually pulled out during the log-lift and ended the contest in third place. Capes, the oldest of the three, was close to strongman retirement at this stage and the next year, at the 1988 World Muscle Power Classic he finished second, and it proved to be his last major outing as a strongman.
For years, Capes was England's most famous athlete. He featured in various commercials, notably for Volkswagen, where he flipped a Polo car to inspect its underside. His popularity extended to children's games and television, with the World's Strongest Man competition becoming a Christmas Day staple. He was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth II, who "howled in laughter" when her glove stuck to his sweaty hands after he won the Braemar Games in 1982. Former strongman and commentator Colin Bryce remarked compared Cape's unparalleled fame in Britain to that of an NFL star in the United States, describing him as "a true household name."
Capes' daily diet reportedly included seven pints of milk, two loaves of bread, a dozen eggs, two steaks, a jar of baked beans, two cans of sardines, a pound of butter, and a leg of lamb.
Highland Games