Geoff Cape's obituary: shot putter who became the strongest man in the world

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

Capes, a frequent guest on “Record Breakers,” won a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing a 150-foot rock, said The Daily Telegraph. He won the World Highland Games five times and was Scottish Highland Games champion seven times. When he wasn’t flexing his enormous muscles, he was breeding budgerigars. He became interested in birds in the 1970s when he worked for Cambridgeshire Police. When he was sent to arrest a man for failing to pay a fine, he noticed his collection of parakeets, and over a cup of tea they had a “nice conversation” about them. “It seemed like a shame when, after the conversation ended, I suddenly remembered what I had to do,” he recalls.

Geoffrey Capes was born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire in 1949. His mother was 6 feet tall and weighed 140 pounds. She had six children from two previous marriages; Geoff was the first child of her third, to a farm worker, and was followed by two more. All eleven lived in three converted workers’ houses in the Fens. Money was very tight. “The family was not only working class, but also at the lowest rung of the very long ladder of the English class system,” Capes said. He was educated at George Farmer School in Holbeach, where he billed himself as a talented athlete, but became involved in many fights and was excluded from the local football team for punching a referee. He left school without qualifications at the age of 14; on his last day, the director told him he would never make anything of himself.

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So this self-styled ‘village syobbo’ joined his father in the fields; but he was already working on his strength and at the age of 15 he proved it by loading 20 tons of potatoes onto 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 older than him, who encouraged him to work on his upper body strength and stay away from the other local tears. At the age of 17 he started to make a name for himself as a shot putter. He represented Great Britain for the first time in 1967 and became national indoor and outdoor champion the following year; and in 1969 he joined the police to subsidize his unpaid sporting career. He proved to be a useful addition to the force. “When I was on duty, there were never any fights on Friday nights,” he said. “When things got ugly, they always said, ‘Send a capesy.'”

Much of the money Capes earned went toward 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 on the Commonwealth Gameshe won gold twice at the European Indoor Championships; but to his disappointment the Olympic medals eluded him. Capes was a hothead, he said The timesand had several altercations with sports authorities. The 1980 Olympics were his last amateur event. He said he was bored throwing an iron ball.