High jumper Jacques Freitag found dead in Pretoria — reports

Former SA high jumper and world champion, Jacques Freitag, who’d been missing for several weeks, has been found dead in Pretoria.

According to Netwerk24, the 42-year-old’s body was discovered in Pretoria West on Monday afternoon. The publication said he had been shot and his body was found in the veld in the area of the Zandfontein cemetery.

Freitag’s sister, Chrissie Lewis, last week appealed for help to locate her brother after he’d gone missing on June 17.

According to various reports, Freitag had been picked up by a man at his mother’s house in Bronkhorstspruit during the night and then never seen or heard from again.

“With sadness to say. We have to report that my brother Jacques Freitag is missing,” Lewis said on a social media post last week.

“Last seen alive 12 June. He has been dropped off in a bush in Booysens, Pretoria West.”

Drug use

Sunday publication Rapport said the 2003 Paris world champion in the high jump had struggled with drug use since hanging up his spikes.

Freitag had apparently also lost his job as a coach at Tuks (University of Pretoria) for using a person off the street to stand in for him on occasion when he was unable to coach.

Rapport also said he’d pocketed the monies from athletes which were meant for meeting entries.

“We weren’t close at all over the last few years because of the drugs,” Freitag’s sister Lewis told the paper.

“I am a single mother and have had to look after my kids and protect them. He has been on drugs for most of the time.”