Geoff Capes Obituary: A Rifleman Who Became The World’s Strongest Man

Standing at 6ft 6in and weighing more than 26 stone, Geoff Capes was a “powerful figure who commanded international respect as a wrestler”, said The Guardian: won gold at the 1974 and 1978 Commonwealth Games and represented Great Britain at three Olympics; but in the 1980s, he became much better known as Britain’s Strongest Man (a title he won in 1979) and World’s Strongest Man (in 1983 and 1985). After that, he was regularly seen on British TV screens throwing cabs, pulling trucks and ripping up phone books.

A frequent guest on “Record Breakers,” Capes earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing a brick 146 feet, said The Daily Telegraph. He won the World Highland Games five times and was Scottish Highland Games champion seven times. When he wasn’t building his enormous muscles, he raised budgerigars. He had become interested in birds in the 1970s while working for Cambridgeshire Police. Sent to arrest a man for non-payment of a fine, he noticed his collection of wigs, and over a cup of tea they had a “nice chat” about them. “It seemed a shame when, after the conversation ended, I suddenly remembered what I had to do,” he recalled.

Geoffrey Capes was born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire in 1949. His mother was six feet tall and weighed 18 stone. She had six children from two previous marriages; Geoff was the first child of the third, a farm labourer, and was followed by two more. All 11 lived in three converted workers’ cottages in the Fens. Money was very tight. “The family was not only working class, it was on the bottom rung of that very long ladder that is the English class system,” Capes said. He was educated at George Farmer School in Holbeach, where he distinguished himself as a talented athlete, but was involved in many fights and was banned from the local football team for punching a referee. He left school without a qualification at 14; on his last day the principal told him he would never make anything of himself.

Subscribe to Week

Escape the echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for free weekly newsletters

From our morning news to a weekly Good News newsletter, get the best of the Week straight to your inbox.

So this self-described “village yobbo” joined his father in the fields; but he was already working on power, and at 15 he proved it by loading 20 tons of potatoes into a truck in 20 minutes. By then he had joined a local athletics club, where he was spotted by Stuart Storey, an international hurdler a few years his senior, who encouraged him to work on his upper body strength and stay away from the other local tearaways. By the age of 17, he had begun to make a name for himself as a marksman. He represented Great Britain for the first time in 1967, becoming national indoor and outdoor champion the year after; and in 1969 he joined the police, to subsidize his unpaid sports career. It proved a useful addition to the force. “When I was on duty there were never fights on Friday nights,” he said. “If things got ugly, they’d always say, ‘Send for Capesy.’

Much of the money Capes earned went on his 12,000-calorie-a-day diet, which included seven pints of milk, a leg of lamb, a dozen eggs and two steaks. As well as competing at Commonwealth Gamestwice won gold at the European Indoor Championships; but to his disappointment, the Olympic medals eluded him. Capes was a hothead, he said The Timesand had several quarrels with sports authorities. The 1980 Olympics were his last amateur event. He was, he said, bored to throw an iron ball.