Jacques Freitag

Jacques Freitag (11 June 1982 – c. 1 July 2024) was a South African high jumper. Freitag is one of only eleven athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Armand Duplantis, Yelena Isinbayeva, Kirani James, Faith Kipyegon, Jana Pittman, Dani Samuels, and David Storl) to win World Championship titles at the youth, junior, and senior levels of an athletic event.

Freitag was born to police officers Hendrina Pieters and Jan Lewis. His parents divorced during childhood and his father later died by suicide. His mother, Hendrina Pieters, was South African high jump champion in 1973 with a personal best of 1.74 metres. He has an older sister, Chrissie. He was in Hoërskool Erasmus in Bronkhorstspruit, then he attended Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool, located in Pretoria. He won the 2003 University of Pretoria Sportsman of the year.

Freitag went missing on 17 June 2024, and on 1 July, his body was found with three gunshot wounds and a broken arm in a field in Pretoria. Rudolph Lubbe and Shantellè Oosthuizen were arrested on 16 July for suspected involvement in Freitag's murder. Lubbe was accused of hiring Freitag to murder Oosthuizen's fiancé, Louis Harmse. Harmse alleged Freitag attacked him with a brick on 13 June. According to his sister, Freitag struggled with addiction and, at the time of his death, was divorced and had one estranged son.