Legendary strongman and Olympian Geoff Capes leaves £240k in will following death aged 75
10 February 2025, 20:16 | Updated: 10 February 2025, 20:45
Legendary strongman Geoff Capes left nearly £240,000 in his will and a last request to have the words “Local Boy Done Good” inscribed on his gravestone.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The former Olympic athlete, who died in hospital aged 75 last October, had an illustrious career as a sportsman and TV personality.
Capes still holds the official record for the longest shot put by a British man and twice won gold in the event at the Commonwealth Games and the European Indoor Championships.
Probate records have now revealed that Capes of Stoke Rochford, Lincolnshire, left his family £244,462, reduced to a net estate of £239,240.
His will stated that the bulk of his estate should be left with his second wife Kashmiro Davi, who lived with him before his death.
Capes also stated that his granddaughter should choose one item from his collection of medals and trophies, with the rest of them split between two grandsons.
He left a Lalique vase to his daughter Emma Boelemar and his grandfather clock to his son Lewis Capes, both from his marriage to his first wife.
His will also stated that he be cremated following a service at a crematorium and that "the inscription 'Local Boy Done Good' shall be placed on my headstone”.
Capes competed in three Olympic Games, and came closest to winning a medal with a fifth-place finish at the 1980 Games in Moscow.
Capes, who was 6ft 5.5ins tall and weighed 26 stone in his prime, was also a six-time champion at the World Highland Games, making him the most successful competitor in the event's history.
His victories in the World's Strongest Man event, which made him a household name, came in 1983 in Christchurch, New Zealand, and 1985 in Cascais, Portugal.
But he was also renowned for his love of budgerigars and became known as one of the world's finest breeders of the cage birds.
Read more: Clarkson's Farm star Kaleb Cooper announces he'll be a dad to baby number three
Read more: Robbie Williams pays £20,000 for comedian's iconic glasses and pipe
Capes served as a policeman for ten years in Cambridgeshire, earning £9.50 a week when he started.
But he was forced to resign before the 1980 Olympics in Moscow after “political pressure” to boycott the Games following Russia's invasion of Afghanistan.
Capes had to quit the force after Margaret Thatcher banned all members of the services including the Army and the police, from competing in protest at the Russian invasion.
