2003 world high jump champion Jacques Freitag was found dead on the street in Pretoria with multiple gunshot wounds: the former South African athlete had been missing for 15 days.
A Tragic news shocks the world of athletics on the eve of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Former South African high jumper and world champion Jacques Freitag, missing for several weeks, has been found dead in PretoriaAccording to the newspaper Netwerk24, The 42-year-old’s body was found lifeless near Zandfontein cemetery in the western part of the South African city and reported multiple gunshot wounds.
A few days ago sister Chrissie Lewis had made a public appeal asking for help in finding the missing former athlete for several weeks. The sister confirmed that the brother was facing a very troubled post-career: has had drug addiction problems ed had recently been dismissed from his coaching role by the University of Pretoria because, when he was not in a condition to coach, he had himself replaced by a person taken off the street and for having pocketed the money from the athletes intended for race registrations.
According to various testimonies reported by the local press, Jacques Freitag was reportedly picked up by a man from his mother’s home in Bronkhorstspruit during the night of June 17 and has not been seen or heard from since. until, on the afternoon of Monday 1 July, his lifeless body was found on a street near a cemetery in Pretoria. A death that remains shrouded in mystery at the moment but on which the police is investigating which, according to several South African newspapers, considers that the most likely hypothesis is that of a murder linked to the world of drugs.
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Shocking news therefore for the world of athletics which It comes just a few weeks before the Olympic Games that will take place in Paris, the very Paris where 21 years ago the then very young Jacques Freitag became world champion with what was then his personal best (2.35m) before the 2.38m jump in 2005 with which he set the South African national record.
