She said on Monday, she opened a missing-person report at Lyttelton police station.
“At this stage, we just hope that he is alive — we hope that he is not cold, he is not hungry, and maybe somewhere on the beach. We are all looking for him, we just hope he is alive and well.”
“He is over 2m tall, so you won’t miss him, he stands out in the crowd and speaks good English and Afrikaans. His phone is off and obviously no-one knows anyone’s phone numbers off by heart. If he asks somebody to help to phone me, hopefully somebody will help him.”
According to TimesLIVE sports writer David Isaacson, Freitag is the only South African to have won world titles at senior, under-20 and under-18 levels. His career had, however, gone off the rails around 2006 when he was accused of assault after a fight involving a gym partner and a 17-year-old pupil, though the charge was later dropped.
In 2012 he was arrested after being found in possession of the drug Cat in Bronkhorstspruit, but attempted a comeback at the national championships at Stellenbosch, where he ended second with a leap of 2.10m.
