From left: Jacques Freitag holds his gold medal after winning the men’s high jump final at the 9th IAAF World Athletics Championship in 2003 in Paris. Freitag at a rehabilitation centre in Mpumalanga in July 2023. Pictures: Michael Steele/Getty Images and Supplied
His name features alongside those of iconic athletes such as Usain Bolt, but Jacques Freitag’s meteoric rise to sporting fame and fortune came at a high price.
Freitag’s bullet-ridden body was found in a field near the Zandfontein Cemetery in Pretoria West on Monday afternoon, 1 July this year, during an extensive search operation for the former high jump world champion.
The towering 2.04m-tall giant turned 42 just days before he was picked up by a man in the early hours of Monday morning, 17 June from the Bronkhorstspruit home of his mother Hendrina Pieters.
He was dropped off hours later at a guesthouse in Pretoria West where he was last seen alive. The guesthouse is situated 4km from the cemetery where Freitag’s body was discovered.
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In the latest developments of his puzzling murder case, Maroela Media claims that the previously unknown man is a former Pretoria lawyer.
This after the publication traced the number from which Freitag phoned the guesthouse several hours later that morning to enquire about a room ahead of his arrival.
Netwerk24 also reported that police returned on Thursday afternoon to the scene where Freitag’s body was found to look for further evidence.
The former top athlete was allegedly also stabbed. The police’s search for the knife, projectile and bullet casings however yielded no results.
In July 2023, Freitag sought help for his years-long battle against drug and alcohol addiction at the Breakthrough Wellness Centre in eMalahleni, Mpumalanga.
While he was at the centre, Freitag spoke in an interview with Witbank News about the trials and tribulations of his life.
“I am a druggie. A recovering addict. I am God’s mistake,” the former four-time South African gold medallist said.
Freitag was only 21 when he won the gold medal in the men’s high jump event clearing 2.35m at the 9th IAAF World Athletics Championship at the Stade de France in Paris on 25 August 2003.
He still holds the national record after clearing 2.38m which he set in a competition in 2005 and is one of only 10 athletes to win world championship titles at the youth, junior, and senior levels of an athletic event.
“I felt alone even though I stood in a stadium with thousands of people around me. I remember sitting on the high jump mat, praying,” the former high jumper revealed.
“That was the day I tried to make a bargain with God. I promised Him that if I win, I would proclaim His name from the mountain tops. But when I won, I was swept away by the flashing cameras, thundering applause, the parties, drugs and women that followed.
“There, on that high jump mat, was the last time that I prayed,” confessed Freitag.
What followed next, eventually spiralled into a series of unfortunate events.
The young star’s dreams of Olympic glory were dashed when he broke his ankle mere days before he was to compete in Athens in 2004.
“Over the past 30 years, there hasn’t been an athlete with the same immense potential he had,” Freitag’s former coach Hugo Badenhorst told Maroela Media following the shocking news of his death.
“If he continued with his athletic career, he would have broken the men’s high jump world record which is still standing since 1991. When he was competing, his personal best was only 7cm short of the record.”
Badenhorst took Freitag under his wing when the then-troubled teenager was basically living on the streets after his father committed suicide.
Apart from his phenomenal talent, Badenhorst remembers the young Freitag as outgoing and highly intelligent.
In his Witbank News interview, Freitag opened up about how his addiction to drugs and sleeping tablets impacted his life.
I stupidly thought that I could handle it, but I lost my wife and two-year-old son along the way.
Shortly after he was arrested in 2012 for the possession of the drug CAT (methcathinone), he started coaching young athletes.
“I was only ‘half a coach’. I was always high on drugs. If I could turn back time, I would have been able to produce more champions,” Freitag said.
In a shocking revelation, the former golden boy of South African athletics told the publication that he tried to take his own life at the age of 35.
“I no longer had the world at my feet and didn’t believe in myself anymore, so I hanged myself,” he said.
He woke up a week later in the Millpark Hospital.
A year later, Freitag broke his neck in two places in a car accident.
His former girlfriend, Michaela Fourie, told Netwerk24 this week that Freitag was doing “really well” at the beginning of this year.
Fourie and Freitag knew each other for more than 20 years. The high jumper contacted her when he moved to eMalahleni to book into the Breakthrough Wellness Centre.
An emotional Fourie said that they spent a lot of time together and ended up dating.
“He was really doing well and even started coaching again at a couple of schools. He built up a good relationship with the kids and teachers. But then he unfortunately started drinking again and that’s why I ended our relationship on 27 March this year.”
A reliable source who tried to help Freitag to get his life back on track told Maroela Media that the former world champion was also using tik (crystal meth) as recently as a few months ago.
“Jacques just couldn’t break away from drugs,” said his former high jump coach. “So many people tried to help him. What a great pity that such great talent has now been lost.”
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