Ugandan marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died of burns, the head of the Ugandan Olympic Committee said on Thursday, four days after a man said to be her partner set her on fire in western Kenya.
“We have learned of the sad passing of our Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei following a violent attack by her boyfriend. May her soul rest in peace and we strongly condemn violence against women,” Donald Rukare said in a message on X, deploring “a cowardly and senseless act that led to the loss of a great athlete.”
The 33-year-old athlete, who had competed in the marathon at the Paris Olympics in August (44th), was being treated at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) in the town of Eldoret, in western Kenya, where she was in a “critical condition” after being burned “more than 80%”, doctors said. A member of the hospital staff told AFP on Wednesday, on condition of anonymity, that her condition had worsened, after “developing a bacterial infection of septicemia”.
Burned on her way back from church
According to a police report seen by AFP, the suspect identified as Dickson Ndiema Marangach entered Rebecca Cheptegei’s property around 2pm local time, while she was at church with her children. The marathon runner lived with her sister and two children in the house she had built in Endebess, a locality where she trained located 25 kilometres from the Ugandan border, her father Joseph Cheptegei, who was in Eldoret, detailed on Tuesday.
When they returned from church, he doused her with petrol and set her on fire in front of her children, two girls aged nine and 11, according to The Standard newspaper. The police report described Rebecca Cheptegei and Dickson Ndiema Marangach as “a couple who constantly had family disputes”. In recent years, several tragedies have cast a shadow over the world of athletics in Kenya.
In April 2022, the body of a Bahraini athlete of Kenyan origin, Damaris Mutua, was found in Iten, a famous training ground for long-distance running on the plateaus of the Rift Valley. Her partner is suspected of having killed her. In October 2021, the promising 25-year-old athlete Agnes Tirop, double world bronze medalist in the 10,000m (2017, 2019) and 4th in the Tokyo Olympics in the 5,000m, was found stabbed to death at her home in Iten. Her husband Emmanuel Ibrahim Rotich is being prosecuted for murder. He denies the accusations. His trial is ongoing.
- RMC Sport
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