Book review: Big Shot, by Geoff Capes

As a big fan of the World’s Strongest Man competitions, I have been looking forward to doing this book review for quite some time.  It’s also the continuation in a series I am doing about great British athletes, which so far have included Chris Hoy, Steve Redgrave and Linford Christie.

The big shot himself

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After all, as I was growing up, Geoff was already a world-famous professional athlete, having won the World’s Strongest Man in 1983 and the World’s Strongest Man in 1985.  He was beaten in 1984 by the dominant force and personality of a young Icelander called Jan Pall Sigmarsson – I don’t know if he ever became popular…

But before his World’s Strongest Man career, Geoff had already been a very successful international field athlete and a specialist in the shot.  He represented Great Britain 67 times and completely dominated British shot putting for over a decade, being unbeaten in all of that time.  By the time he finally retired from the shot, there was still no British athlete capable of beating him.

At the time when his autobiography was published, he was the most capped British athlete of all time.  Wikipedia records that this record still stands.

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Starting at the end

The book begins with the final scenes of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.  Capes had been throwing the shot further than anyone else in the world for the better part of the year.  He had increased the British record to a staggering 21.68m (over 71 feet).

However, when it came to the Olympics, his throws just weren’t there.  He finished fifth behind a number of other great throwers, the winner being Vladimir Kiselyov, who threw just 21.35m.  Capes was distraught but it was all over.  He would not go to the Olympics again.

It is not the most uplifting way to start the book but it does set many things in context.  It sets the scene for a number of themes and issues that Geoff discusses, including the nature of competition, stress, officials, drug use, the British attitude to the different strands of sport and sponsorship in athletics.

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Strength and speed

At various times in the book, Capes discusses the importance of speed for an athlete and notes how it was as much his speed that helped him succeed as his strength.

This reminds me of something that Bill Kazmaier said about Geoff.  He said that he was the world’s strongest man but that Geoff was the world’s strongest athlete.  He recognised that Capes’s success wasn’t just about raw strength but was about his explosive power and athleticism.

However, that doesn’t mean that Geoff was a slouch in the weights room, though.  He claims a 575lbs raw bench press at one point, which had my eyes out on stalks.

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Competition and stress

Obviously, as someone who experienced the trauma of choking at an Olympic final, Capes is well-qualified to talk about the effects of pressure on the athlete.  He casts his net fairly wide and talks through the various stressors that an athlete experiences during that time.

In a fairly matter-of-fact way, he explains how the Olympic village is a pressure cooker of an environment and the small, cramped quarters and constant tension make for heightened aggresion, arguments and friction.  He describes how the officials are often not interested in the athletes or their requirements but are often there purely for their own enjoyment.

Geoff walks us through the experience of throwing qualifying distance and of taking part in the competition.  He describes the intense rivalry and the lengths that other athletes will go to distract or demotivate their opponents.

Interestingly, Capes also notes how he had the kind of athletic personality that needed the stimulus of competition to make him throw his best.  Against other British athletes, he rarely threw his best.  He only rose to the challenge when he had strong competitors to bounce off.

Later, in World’s Strongest Man, this tendency to get motivated by competition seemed to show through even more, perhaps because he had such a strong field to compete against, being a contemporary of both Bill Kazmaier and Jan Pall Sigmarsson, as well as many other less well-known stars of strength sports.  Competing against Bill especially, for whom winning was everything, must have been an incredible experience.

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British athletics officials

I was surprised and saddened by the very low opinion that Geoff formed of the British athletics officials during his time at an international level.  For clarity, he is full of praise for the grass-roots officials and enthusiasts who arrange local meets and training clubs.  His vitriol is directed at the officials who accompany athletes on meets around the world, who rarely offer anything of value and who seem to be going purely for their own enjoyment.

He notes that there was a double standard for them in that they seemed to be permitted to get into all sorts of scrapes without any recriminations.  On the other hand, whenever an athlete had an altercation or had trouble with the locals, they got sent home and the publicity was horrendous.

Similarly, the expectation that an athlete should retain their amateur status despite needing to train at high levels receives short shrift from Geoff, although the English Police service were clearly very forgiving in allowing him time to train and compete.  Going professional for World’s Strongest Man didn’t seem to blunt his competitive streak however, contrary to what some studies on motivation suggest…

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Drug use

I was interested to read Geoff”s comments about drug use in sport.  Without directly stating it, he seemed to be implying that steroid use was widespread, even back in the 1970′s.  He also seems to be saying that the athletes and their coaches are skilled at hiding the effects and masking the tests so that officials cannot detect the use.

I guess by now it must be at a different level entirely.

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British attitude to sports

Geoff is critical of the British media attitude to sport, which gives great coverage to endurance runners and largely ignores field events, including throwing.  This is as true now as it was back in the 1970′s.

In fact, it is now worse because the sports sections of newspapers have been entirely replaced with football sections.  You cannot buy a newspaper anymore with a sports section.  They only come with football sections.

And this focus on running is enormously sad, although the UK does have a great running heritage, going back to Roger Bannister.  Endurance runners are not particularly athletic, after all.  They don’t have any transferable strength or power.

Most people think that it is the people like Geoff who are unathletic and that marathon runners are “fit”.  This is complete rubbish.  Capes could run a 23.7s 200m at a bodyweight of 150kg.  The speed and power involved in that performance is just staggering.  It is athletic.  He would have made an awesome rugby player.

On the other hand, I doubt you could find a marathon runner who could turn out that performance, even at a third of the bodyweight.

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So that’s the Geoff Capes autobiography.  As you’ve probably noticed, it runs out in the early 1980′s.  I do hope he writes another one before it’s too late…