Olympian and former world champ shot dead at 42
South African police have found the body of former Olympian and high jump world champion Jacques Freitag after he was reported missing.
Local authorities say that they found the body of the 42-year-old in a field near a cemetery in the city of Pretoria with fatal gunshot wounds, and are treating his death as murder.
South African news Netwerk24 reported that a source claims Freitag was allegedly executed, as one of the gunshot wounds was allegedly located in the back of his head.
Freitag's sister, Chrissie Lewis, had appealed for help on social media to find her brother, who went missing in the early hours of June 17th after leaving his mother's house.
Lewis said he had struggled with drug addiction after his athletics career ended.
He was then not seen again until his body was discovered.
Freitag won the 2003 world title in Paris and competed at the 2004 Olympics, representing South Africa in high jump.
He was among a select group of athletes to win world titles at youth, junior and senior level, as World Athletics called Freitag “a prodigious athlete”.
He won the high jump at the 1999 Youth World Championships in Poland, the Junior World Champs in Chile in 2000 and the Senior's in France in 2003.
In 2003, he cleared 2.35m at the Stade de France in Paris to win the gold medal at the IAAF World Championships.
He retired from sport in 2013 and was said to have in recent times been sleeping on the streets or friends' couches, having been unable to hold down a full-time job.
Image credits: Hahn Lionel/ABACA/Shutterstock Editorial