Athletics was rocked by the brutal killing of Ugandan distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei last week.
Witness accounts said Cheptegei was doused in petrol by her ex-boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema, who then set her on fire. She was returning home from church with her two children in a village in northwest Kenya, where she lived and trained. She was rushed to hospital with severe burns to 80 per cent of her body, but died days later.
It was only a month ago that Cheptegei ran at the Paris Olympics, finishing in 44th. She previously won gold at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in 2022.
The news of Cheptegei’s killing was met around the world as heartbreaking, sad, brutal and senseless. Unfortunately though, many within the sport were not shocked. Devastatingly, she is the third elite athlete to be killed in the region in the last three years.
In October 2021 Agnes Tirop was found stabbed to death, allegedly by her husband, just five weeks after she set a world record in the 10,000m road record. She was a two-time World Athletics Championship medallist, and only 25 years old. Tirop’s husband is facing murder charges, which he denies.
A few months later, Kenyan-born Damaris Muthee Mutua, 28, who represented Bahrain in athletics, was found dead in the same town of Iten. A post-mortem revealed she was likely strangled, and her boyfriend was again the main suspect (and still remains at large).
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