Jeff Capes could still comfortably eat the dozen or so eggs he ate every day in preparation for competing for Great Britain or the World Cup. The strongest person. Author: The Telegraph/John Robertson.
Six pounds of red meat. Dozen eggs. Large jar of baked beans. Two cans of sardines. One and a half pounds of cottage cheese. Cereal pack. Two large loaves of bread. A pound of butter. Pint of orange juice. And seven pints of milk.
No, it wasn't the weekly family order at the supermarket. It was simply the daily diet of a man who was once not only officially the strongest man on the planet, the best shot putter in the world, and a six-time Highland Games champion, but also the title holder of the World Budgerigar Breeding Champion.< /p>
Jeff Capes was also one of the most recognizable faces in the country, appearing primetime on every program you can imagine, from This Is Your Life and Sooty Show (where Sweep dreamed of beating him in a tug of war) to Blankety Blank and Super . Grandmother (whom he almost killed by accidentally throwing a huge tree trunk).
Now 73, Capes sits in a chair that looks like the throne of a giant fairy king and just raises an eyebrow. when I read aloud his old food diary.
«Twelve eggs!?» he snorts. “I could eat this now. I ate like a damn horse! Everything I could get my hands on. But almost all protein. It's like a steam engine. Put in the coal. I burned up to 10,000 calories every four or five hours.»
Three Generations of Shot Capes: Jeff with son Lewis and grandchildren Donovan and Lawson. By: John Robertson for The Telegraph
Capes, who lifted 120 tons a week in training, then smiles as he recalls sponsorship deals that helped him bypass the amateur rules that once governed Olympic sports such as athletics and swimming.
«Butcher Brown is the best in the business.» town,” he says, echoing the slogan of one meat supplier before recalling that his Talbot Estate car was emblazoned with the words “Dewhurst: Master Butchers.” It was a small price to pay for an endless supply of steaks. There were also deals with Glenryck Pillchard and a local milk producer.
“My weekly police salary was £9.50, so I couldn’t live on that money,” says Capes, who briefly describes official assistance to athletes like him who combined full-time work (often night shifts). ) with regular trips around the world to represent their country. «It was like, 'Take care of yourself, buddy,'» he says.
Some might suggest that little has changed, and Capes, who has consistently held the official British shot put record for 51 years, remains an encyclopedic and avid researcher of the sport. He's a little thin, isn't he? he says, estimating which UK team will be the smallest at the World Championships in Athletics since 2005. There will be only two people in the entire field competition program, although it will include Scott Lincoln, a shot putter who is now within 40cm of Capes. The British record at 21.68 meters — you can see it below.
The big hope is that the upcoming World Championships can help raise the profile of British athletics to its peak in the late 1970s and 1980s, with the likes of Capes, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett, Fatima Whitbread, Steve Cram, Cathy Cook, Daley Thompson and Tessa Sanderson has become a household name.
“We were all a tight-knit group, but in a way superstars,” says Capes. «We each had our own image, and if we took one to the event, we were the best team in the world.»
Capes is now worried about the grassroots, but there is huge excitement over the success of his two grandsons, 18-year-old Donovan and 14-year-old Lawson, who are training on the shot put ring he built in his home village of Stoke. Rochford. Donovan won the 2019 English Schools title and is heading to the United States on a scholarship, while Lawson is currently the nation's top under-15 at two meters tall. “Donovan will get better, but Lawson? Watch that bitch,” Capes tells me.
Grandchildren Donovan, 18, and Lawson, 14 years, have already excelled in the shot put. Photo: John Robertson for The Telegraph
They are both coached by Capes' son Lewis, himself a former shot putter and American football player, and have photographs and memorabilia from their grandfather's career hanging all over the barn where they practice strength training.
Lewis then shows me a recent video of Lawson alongside old footage of his 6ft 5in grandfather. The similarities in their shot put technique are striking.
«There's a lot to do to cross that seven-foot circle, and in those two seconds you expend as much energy as a 200-meter sprinter,» Jeff explains. who is regularly sent footage of the boys in action to pass on feedback.
The common family thread is the speed and timing of rare explosive power. Lawson can run 100 meters in 11.6 seconds. His grandfather once slowed down to 11.2 seconds and, even when he weighed 23 stone, he could still run the 200 meters in 23.7 seconds, which was fast enough to beat Brendan Foster in the race. “I had the same muscle fibers as a sprinter,” says Capes, whose daughter Emma was another National High School Champion and Youth Olympic medalist.
Capes was also born with a rare natural size. from a family of nine in the Lincolnshire Moors overcame serious childhood difficulties.
He combined his studies at Holbeach with carrying sacks of potatoes on the farm and often had problems with authority.
“A boy, written on the contrary, it is a yob,” he says. “I was a hell of a fighter too. If the next city came on a Friday and there were only eight or nine, I would say, «Come back and get more.» I fought them alone. I was pretty calm, but there was internal aggression.
«My director, a guy named Joe Vathers, took great pleasure in trying to beat this out of me. He was ex-Borstal. He had a choice of walking sticks. He would hit you anywhere — on the knuckles two by two. He tore my ear. On the last day, I went into his office, removed the canes from the wall in the office in front of him, and went out.”
He also showed a talent for athletics, and in 1964 Capes participated in the same English school championships that his grandchildren have since won. he says. «My mother was a warden and all my clothes came from nursing homes after people died.»
However, Capes found a way to channel what he calls «the chip on my shoulder.» and, having met Stuart Storey at a local club and offered to wear his spikes, he found a life mentor.
Now 80, Story is best known as a BBC track and field commentator from 1973 to 2008, but he was also the 1968 Olympic champion in the 110m hurdles and never forgot his first encounter with the man he still calls «Jeffrey.»
«He was a bully,» Storey says, comparing the raincoats and athletics to a young boxer from an underprivileged area in Detroit or New York who groped his way out.
To Capes, who was hitchhiking to track and field events, Storey said he could do a lot if he just channeled his energy. They then embarked on a joint shot put journey that ended with Capes becoming the UK's top scoring athlete, a two-time European and Commonwealth champion, and a 17-time national champion.
Olympic champion. the medal, however, remained elusive, and no World Championships in Athletics were held until 1983. Capes did compete in three Olympics, including the 1976 and 1980 Games, as one of the favorites for gold, but finished sixth and fifth, respectively, behind podiums consisting entirely of East German and Soviet throwers.
Capes competed in three Olympic Games but lost in 1976 and 1980 to athletes from the GDR and the USSR, who were widely suspected of doping. Photo: Evening Standard/Getty Images. he «acquired equipment» and his training for the 1980 Olympics as a police officer was thwarted by concerted political pressure to boycott the Moscow Games.
«Russia invaded Afghanistan and Margaret Thatcher banned all services from going there — the army and the police — because they paid them a salary. That's why I quit the police force just before the Olympics. I lost my career, I lost my pension, I lost my income. They had complete control over you.”
Capes saw no future as an amateur and, convinced that he would still be in contention for a shot put medal in 1984, began a new career combining the World Mountain Games with the increasingly popular and lucrative strongman tournament.
With 15 million viewers on Christmas TV, winning the World's Strongest Man in 1983 and 1985 and Europe's Strongest Man in 1980, 1982 and 1984 made him more famous than ever. “I remember playing rugby at school and my dad came up to me to say that he won the title of the strongest man in the world, but I didn’t have to tell anyone because it hadn’t been shown on TV for several months,” Lewis says. p>
An assortment of strength tests — bending steel bars, lifting the platform of rabbit girls, flipping cars, towing trucks, loading sandbags on the back of a truck, arm wrestling and tug of war — gave the show a cult status. And Capes soon became in demand for everything from 17 performances in pantomime and children's television to performances at the Palladium with Bobby Davreau and numerous TV commercials (he famously flipped the VW Polo once more by rolling it upside down and side to side) .
Capes shakes his head when I say that it must have been nice to be known as the strongest man in the world. world.
«There were stronger people out there — I met a lot of them in the Lincolnshire swamps,» he says. «But it was about using force. Can you use it at speed? Can you run with 400 pounds? farm when I was a kid with sacks of potatoes. And I sorted it out technically. They called me 'number'. If I went first, you'd see everyone copying.
«When Strongman came into power, everyone thought you were in, [but]… I stayed at the Highland Games, which were being tested, I was probably one of the most proven athletes ever.
“I was at a disadvantage [in World's Strongest Man]. I can tell you this. But I surpassed them in natural strength, speed, agility, coordination. It brought me some money and allowed me to visit many places. We were mostly comrades. It's [sport] to some extent… but I'm not sure it will go past the people of Wada.»
As we talk, the constant chirping of about 200 budgerigars from a barn adjoining the conservatory provides a remarkably soothing soundtrack. Capes became interested in breeding after seeing some in the home of a man he had arrested while on the police force.
He liked the soothing contrast to the aggression and intensity of his sporting life, which also included earning a black belt in aikido and judo.
He became president of the Budgerigar Society and says he has never been happier than when he won the world championship in the variety category. “Whatever it was, I wanted to win,” he says.
Winning the World Budgerigar Championship title gave Capes more satisfaction than any other accomplishment. Written by Christopher Pledger for The Telegraph
There is now a battle for his health following a hospital stay earlier this year. “Something is wrong with me,” says Capes, who has constant weakness in his knees and shoulders and struggles to raise his arm. «I've competed with so many injuries — sometimes you want someone to see what you gave.»
His mobility has been particularly affected, but he has no regrets or self-pity, and he assures me that he «fight back». And the most natural smile comes when recalling the camaraderie and fun of his early days in athletics, such as the disappearance of a case of 12 bottles of whiskey from a group of British officials at the 1972 Olympics who were notorious for their extravagance. attitude towards travel and fine dining, while the athletes got by on a daily ration of 50p.
“We drank it throughout the Games,” Capes laughs, recalling not only how he was asked how police officer, federation secretary Cecil Dale to investigate this «theft», but as athletes secretly kept it in the attic of their homes. “There were so many stories,” says Capes. “I had time. I enjoyed my life and traveled all over the world. How many people can say that?»
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