World champion high jumper Jacques Freitag found dead in suspected murder

South Africa's former world champion high jumper Jacques Freitag has been found dead in a suspected murder after being missing for more than two weeks.

According to the Independent Online, Freitag's body was discovered in a veld in Pretoria West on the 1st of July with multiple gunshot wounds.

Since retiring from his athletics career in the mid-2000s, the former high jumper got involved with drugs and even spent three days behind bars for possession of drugs.

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According to the Afrikaans Newspaper, Freitag's sister, Lewis, said: "We weren't close at all over the last few years because of the drugs. 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."

Before he retired from athletics, Freitag was a prominent athlete for South Africa, winning the 2003 High Jump World Championship and competing at the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece.

According to the World Athletics website, Freitag is in a group of ten athletes to win individual world titles at U18, U20, and senior level, with his first gold being at the 1999 U18 World Championships in Bydgoszcz, days after turning 17.

In 2000, the South African dominated the high jumping scene at the youth level, winning 14 of 15 events and securing the U20 World Championship in Santiago de Chile.

In early 2002, he set an African high jumping record of 2.37m before landing a senior World Championship gold in 2003, with a height of 2.35m, becoming the first African man to win gold in a field event.

In 2005, he increased his African record to 2.38m, a record that still stands to this day in the high jump. He retired from the sport in 2013.

The Daily Beast reports Freitag's sister claimed his 6ft8 body wouldn't be hard to find. Now, after several weeks of looking and eventually finding him, the police have launched a murder investigation.

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