Jacques Freitag did everything he possibly could to compete at the Athens Olympics and at least in that he succeeded. But the Pretoria athlete is the world champion, and even though he went out to take on his strongest rivals in the high jump at the Olympic Stadium cauldron with a painful ankle, he will always consider Friday night a failure.
”That’s what makes me a champion,” he said. ”I cannot accept defeat easily, no matter what the odds are against me.”
The days leading up to the opening of athletics in Athens would make for a dramatic movie if one were to reveal all the details. If he succeeded with gold, it would have made an epic.
As things happened, Freitag, with intense desperation, attacked heights that he would normally have treated like a vault over a picket fence.
He came into the Olympics with a 2,34m qualifier eight weeks after he had already withdrawn from the Games because of an ankle injury that doctors said would take at least a year to sort out with surgery.
Yet, against all odds Freitag made it to the Olympic Stadium run-up, despite the right shoe of his brand-new, $3Â 000 sponsored spikes ripping on take-off during training last week. His ankle went over and that’s when his Olympic curtain came sliding down.
He made it with ease over 2,10m, 2,15m and 2,20m, then limped after he failed his first attempt at 2,25m. Suddenly, the 2,28m that favourites Mark Boswell and Stefan Holm achieved along with the 10 others was impossible for the young man who cleared 2,37m for the Africa record.
He was in pain, but he never used it as his excuse.
”I reckon we were expecting too much after I missed an entire winter programme after my ankle injury,” said Freitag afterwards. ”I will say that it’s incredible that I’m even here.”
Freitag said his coach, Bob Cervanka, had to get him ready in eight weeks.
”It was an impossible task. And if it wasn’t for applied kinesiologist Ron Holder, who got me ready to come here, then had four days to try and fix an injury on top of the one he’d already fixed, I would never have even walked on to the track tonight. Four days ago I couldn’t even walk properly.
”But I had to try. I had to get out here for just in case. I’m bitterly disappointed. It’s not over yet. There’s another Olympics in four years and I have a title to defend at the world championships [in Helsinki next year].”
Johan Cronje made it through into the 1Â 500m semifinals, ranked 23rd, after his 3:40,99 first heat, but further disaster struck for triple-jumper Godfrey Mokoena who apparently misread his starting time for the triple jump and arrived at the Olympic Stadium too late to warm up. He was just in time to start and it came as no surprise when he bombed out of his preliminary round in 14th position with 16,32m against that of winner Yoandri Betanzos of Cuba’s 7,53m.
Geraldine Pillay was also unfortunate to finish her 100m heat in 11,44 seconds, just as the head wind picked up, and she fell out of the first round after finishing sixth in her heat.
Marcus la Grange finished third in his 400m first heat, but his 45,95 seconds wasn’t fast enough to go through.
Janice Josephs got her heptathlon campaign under way with 3Â 613 points at 19th overall after the 100m hurdles, shot put and 200m. She continues on Saturday with long jump, javelin and 800m. — Sapa
Special Report: Olympics 2004