By Larry Lombaard
Athens - Amazingly, Jacques Freitag will walk onto the Olympic Stadium track on Friday night determined on clearing 2,28m to qualify for the finals when track and field, the flagship of the Olympic Games, begins its voyage in Athens.
The shotput on Wednesday at Ancient Olympia in the remote west of Greece where the Olympics was born, has set the tone of antiquity for the Games.
Now the spirit of the global epic is sucked from those serene and mystical mountains, where Janus Robberts and Burger Lambrechts fell to the fickle Olympic gods, into the frantic city energy of the modern Olympics.
Robberts, in great shape for the Olympics, knows that dark place you go to when you don't make an Olympic final. His best distance this season was 21,24, but he sank out of his prelim with a short 19,41m and he later squashed the cooldrink cup in a massive fist as he watched in frustration from the grass banks of the sacred Olympic site.
Everything was in place for him, but he tensed up when it mattered most.
"I could have been there," he said with pain in his eyes as he watched Ukranian Yuruy Bilnog throw 21,16 for gold.
Now the focus is on Freitag and, against all odds, he has overcome a different kind of pain and done everything in his power to be here. After a dramatic, mind-boggling, breathtaking tightrope walk pivotal to his injured ankle, he steps off the high wire and now, ladies and gentlemen, the real action begins.
Seven South Africans compete in qualifying rounds at Olympic Stadium on Friday.
Janice Josephs gets her heptathlon campaign underway, Elizna Naude in discus, sprinter Geraldine Pillay in the 100m, Free Stater Johan Cronje in the 1500m, seasoned Marcus la Grange in the 400m and the highly-talented Khotso Mokoena in the triple jump.
The attention of the international media at the Olympics, however, will be on the amazing story surrounding South Africa's world champion Jacques Freitag.
That Freitag, who won the world high jump title in Paris a few weeks after his 21st birthday last year, can even take that first step onto the track is amazing because less than three months ago doctors gave his injured ankle no chance of making it to the Olympics.
Should the ankle and Freitag's psyche hold and he jumps 24cm higher than his own considerable height of 2,04m - only then will he qualify for the finals on Sunday night.
Normally, this would be a cakewalk, but under present circumstance, it would be magical.
Then, should he lift himself above anything imaginable to we mere mortals and win a medal it would be phenomenal. Then, should Freitag soar to gold it would be miraculous.
Freitag, on his precarious tightrope walk, has stumbled many times and came so close to falling off here in Athens, but by Thursday his step was sure and he was walking with confidence again thanks to the balancing methods of applied kinesiologist Ron Holder.
"We're happy, it's going well," was all Holder was prepared to say after Freitag's final training session, a light workout with the emphasis on focus, under coach Bob Cervenka.
"Everything we wanted to happen, has happened," said Cervenka. "There were heart-stopping moments last week, but once Ron arrived from London we got things back on track. Athletes have to jump 2,28 metres tomorrow morning to make the final. They start at 2,10m, then 2,20 and 2,25 before setting the bar at 2,28.
"That's our first hurdle. Then we have some precious time to focus on the final on Sunday."
So if the phenomenal happens and Freitag soars into the final, he jumps in the presence of his greatest rival Stefan Holms of Sweden, the man he beat with 2,36m for the world title. Holms, they say, is good for 2,38m right now, which made him the instant favourite for gold once the South African hurt his ankle in the early European season this year.
Holder's unconventional muscle-balancing methodology to prevent and overcome injury, has ruffled the scientific minds of conventional sports doctors. But his telephone page foot orthotics and muscle-manipulation got Freitag out of crutches to a series of jumps in the 2,20s to culminate in a 2,34m clearance in Europe. It was a far cry from his Africa record 2,37m, but it booked his ticket to Athens.
In Athens last week, during training, the Olympic gods went a little crazy around Freitag and his brand new competition spike couldn't hold the massive tonnage exerted on takeoff and that ankle went over. Any conventional medical team would have given no chance of competing by Friday.
But Freitag teetered on the high wire until Holder arrived from London on Sunday to give him balance.
Holder will have paid €300 (about R2 500) to sit in the stands during Friday's prelim rounds to anxiously watch the young man who has become perhaps the most defining work of his life.
Even then, it's difficult to conceive that the South African will even make it into the finals, but these are the Olympics of myths and legends. For Freitag, well, he says that it's a miracle that he has even got as far as walking onto the track. - Sapa