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The family of missing high jumper, Jacques Freitag, say they just hope the former world champion is still alive.
Freitag was last seen in Booysens after allegedly being “picked up by a person from his mother’s home in Bronkhorstsprut” on June 17.
According to his sister, Chrissie du Toit, he had been struggling financially and was promised a job by the man who picked him up.
“This guy had a job for him. He dropped him off at a guest house, picked him up in the morning and at the end he said he had dropped him off in Booysens, and that was the last time Freitag was seen,” she said. Du Toit said the alarm was raised when Freitag’s landlord called her.
“He said he had been gone since the 10th. I went to his flat and there was nothing. In the end, I found out he was at my mother’s, it was his birthday on the 11th, so he was there with her. Somebody came to pick him up on the 16th late at night and said he had a job for him to do.”
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.
Anyone with information on his whereabouts can contact the police or Crime Stop at 08600-10111.