Bonnes

b. 1867 · Narbonne, France

Bonnes, of Narbonne, was a French professional weightlifter of the years around 1900. Edmond Desbonnet, who promoted him, called him the undisputed champion of the world and "the finest dumbbell worker" he had seen. Almost everything known about him comes from Desbonnet's account in Les Rois de la force (1911).

Origins

Desbonnet gives his birth as Narbonne, 1867, but no first name. In 1897 Bonnes was running a masonry business in Narbonne when the touring strongman Batta invited him to try his apparatus; he pressed Batta's 100 kg barbell overhead at the first attempt. He later sold the business and went to Paris to turn professional, training at the gymnasium of Noël le Gaulois in the rue des Boulets, where he made his entrance in 1897 by lifting the club's 250-livre bar in a frock coat.

The work

Bonnes performed at the Folies-Bergère, where — by Desbonnet's account — the public thought the weights were fake because he lifted them so easily, and later at the Olympia. On 1 May 1898 Desbonnet brought him to the Club athlétique roubaisien, where about five hundred spectators saw him set records. He went on to a contest in Vienna, and later won the world championship organised by the newspaper L'Auto, against a field that included the Russian Sergei Eliseev and Émile Deriaz. When he retired from the stage to teach, Desbonnet says, he handed his title to Deriaz.

Notable feats

Desbonnet gives his figures in French livres of 500 g:

• Roubaix, 1 May 1898: one-hand snatch of 160 livres (80 kg) with each hand; two-hands press of 200 livres (100 kg); two-hands clean and jerk of 281 livres (140.5 kg), with his feet tied, a record Desbonnet says stood for ten years.
• Vienna: one-hand snatch of 171 livres (85.5 kg) with each hand and a two-hands clean of 282 livres (141 kg), winning two gold medals.
• Gymnase Arasse, without official judges: one-hand snatch of 180 livres (90 kg), jerk of 293 livres (146.5 kg) and clean of 317 livres (158.5 kg).
• Measurements: 1.71 m tall and 90 kg in May 1898; 92 kg in October 1903.

Disputed and unresolved

Bonnes's first name, the date of his death and the exact year of his L'Auto title are not established here. The first name "Pierre" is sometimes attached to him but has not been confirmed in any source we have found. The record figures are Desbonnet's, who organised the Roubaix meeting and was a partisan witness; the Gymnase Arasse lifts were not officially checked.