Former South African Olympian Jacques Freitag found dead
According to reports from ESPN, former South African high jump Olympian and world champion Jacques Freitag was found dead. A murder case has been opened by the South African police after he went missing last month.
Initially, the local media reported that the Athens 2004 Olympian and the 2003 world title winner in Paris, Freitag had gone missing since mid-June.
Police said they found the dead body near a cemetery in South Africa’s capital city of Pretoria. Though the body was not formally identified by family members, later on Thursday, the SA Police Service Brigadier Brena Muridili confirmed that the family had identified the body as Freitag’s.
"The family have identified the body as his,” Brenda Muridili told ESPN.
It’s worth noting that Freitag’s sister Chrissie Lewis took to social media to find her brother, who went missing on June 17 after leaving his mother’s home. Freitag struggled with drug addiction since his competitive career ended, according to Lewis.
Jacques Freitag was part of the Athens 2004 Olympics
Jacques Freitag won world titles at the youth, junior, and senior levels. In the 2003 World Championships in France, he created the then-national record with his best jump of 2.35m to secure the world title.
Freitag made it to the Athens Olympics in 2004. However, he couldn't create an impact, suffering an exit from the qualifying round after jumping only 2.20m. The qualifying standard for the final was set at 2.28m.
On Thursday, July 4, Athletics South Africa (ASA) paid a warm tribute to Jacques Freitag. ASA commission chairperson Hendrick Mokganyetsi said (via ESPN):
"On the fifth of March 2005, I remember he cleared 2.38 metres - that was a national record. He was a four-time SA champ in high jump. In 2000, he won gold at the world junior champs that were held in Santiago, Chile."
"He won the gold medal at the world champs in Paris with a jump of 2.35 metres. This victory made him the first South African to win a gold in high jump at the world champs,” he concluded.