Body of Missing High Jump Champion Discovered in Tragic Murder Investigation

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In a tragic turn of events, South African police have discovered the body of former high jump world champion Jacques Freitag, who had been missing for a month. The 42-year-old, who won the 2003 world title in Paris and competed at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, was found with gunshot wounds. The police located his body in a field near a cemetery in Pretoria and are treating the case as a murder investigation. The family has not yet formally identified the body, but Chrissie Lewis, Freitag’s sister, took to social media to ask for help finding her brother, who had disappeared on June 17 after leaving his mother’s house with an unknown man. Freitag had struggled with drug addiction following the end of his athletic career and was part of a select group of athletes who had won world titles at youth, junior, and senior levels with a personal best high jump of 2.38m in 2005.