Jacques Freitag won the first gold medal for the Republic of South Africa at the ninth World Athletics Championships in Paris on Monday when he won the men's high jump with a leap of 2.35 metres, his best this season.

Sweden's Stefan Holm won the silver with a jump of 2.32 metres while Mark Boswell of Canada had to settle for the bronze despite clearing the same height because he took three attempts at it as against Holm's two.

Freitag fouled on his first attempt at the winning height, but got it right on his second. He had two more attempts available to him, but he did not go for the championship record of 2.40 metres, set by Cuba's Javier Sotomayor in Stuttgart ten years ago. He did not even attempt his own personal best of 2.37m achieved last year in Durban.

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