Standing close to 6ft 6in and weighing more than 26st in his athletic prime, Geoff Capes was a mighty figure who commanded international respect as a record-breaking shot putter, and later achieved even greater renown as a sporting personality through appearances in televised strongman competitions. Twice he won the accolade of being World’s Strongest Man, as well as achieving serial successes in Highland Games events.
Although Capes, who has died aged 75, never fulfilled his ambition of winning an Olympic medal, despite competing in three Games, with a best finish of fifth in 1980, he had an illustrious career, winning a Commonwealth gold medal in 1974 and 1978, and twice claiming the European indoor title, in 1974 and 1976. He would represent his country on a record 67 occasions between 1969 and his retirement from athletics 11 years later, when he chose to concentrate on paid competition. He achieved a lifetime best shot put distance of 21.68m in his final competition, in 1980, for a national record that still stands.
Capes was already popular among British athletics fans, but his fame grew with the television exposure that came with his appearance in the World’s Strongest Man competition. He won for the first time in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1983; and again in 1985, when the event was held in Cascais, Portugal, and he was able to prevail in an epic battle against his great Icelandic rival Jón Páll Sigmarsson.
Another British World’s Strongest Man winner, Eddie Hall, who took the title in 2017, described Capes as “a giant in heart and spirit. He paved the way for athletes like me, showing British grit and determination could conquer the world.”
Capes was born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire. His father, Bill, was a farm labourer, the third husband to Geoff’s mother, Eileen (nee Alcock), who already had six children from her earlier marriages and would have two more following Geoff’s birth. The family lived in humble farm cottages and Capes would recall: “The family wasn’t just working class, but was on the lowest rung of that very long ladder that is the English class system.”
Leaving school at 14 with no academic qualifications, Capes took whatever jobs he could find on the fields with his father before going to work as a labourer. By his own admission, he was “a bit of a tearaway” but found that he excelled in sport, representing Lincolnshire at football, basketball and cross country running.
It was athletics that appealed most. He joined Holbeach Athletics Club, where the hurdler Stuart Storey (a 1968 Olympian and later BBC athletics commentator) recognised his potential. Storey began coaching him, encouraging Capes to develop his upper body strength and to concentrate on shot putting. By the late 1960s, he was an international and the national champion, and had found a career, having joined the police aged 19.
Capes chose to resign from the force before the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The Conservative government had asked athletes not to travel to Moscow as a British team, due to Russian military action in Afghanistan. Capes recalled: “Margaret Thatcher banned all armed forces and police from going so I resigned from the police. I lost my career, my pension and my income.” And he believed his public opposition to the government’s stance was a key factor behind him never being subsequently recognised in the honours list for his considerable athletics achievements.
After his athletics and strongman careers were over, Capes maintained his public profile through TV appearances and lucrative advertising campaigns. In one notable television advert in 1983, an immaculately suited Capes picked up and rolled over a Volkswagen car as the voiceover said: “You don’t have to be the richest or strongest man in the world to pick up a Polo.”
He owned and ran a sports retail business in Holbeach and became a magistrate. Another great passion was budgerigar breeding. His love of the birds developed by chance from his policing days when he was working on the beat and had been sent to arrest a man for non-payment of a fine. The suspect’s house was filled by a collection of dozens of the birds and Capes asked to take a closer look.
“We sat down, had a cup of tea and had a chat about budgerigars. I did eventually arrest him,” he said, “but he was very good about it and he started me off by giving me my first three pairs of budgerigars. From there, I’ve never looked back.”
Capes went on to win international competitions for budgerigar breeders and in 2008 was elected president of the Budgerigar Society of Great Britain. “I think the members voted for me because I believe in commitment, hard work and dedication. And I don’t take any nonsense.”
Capes is survived by his partner, Kashi, and by two children, Emma and Lewis, from his 1971 marriage to Gill (nee Fox), which ended in divorce in 1982.
• Geoffrey Lewis Capes, athlete and strongman, born 23 August 1949; died 23 October 2024
