Olympian and long-distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei died Thursday after sustaining mortal burn wounds to 80% of her body in a gasoline attack last weekend. She was 33.
Dr. Owen Menach, who is on staff at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in the city of Eldoret, confirmed Cheptegei’s death via multiple organ failure to the New York Times. In addition to kidney failure, which the Times reported set in at the time of Cheptegei’s initial hospitalization, she also sustained inhalation burns.
Kenyan police reported that Cheptegei, a Ugandan athlete who finished in 44th place in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics in August, was doused in gasoline and set on fire by her boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema, on Sunday afternoon. Authorities also noted that the couple had been embroiled in an argument over an unknown matter before the attack took place. Cheptegei’s father, Joseph Cheptegei, told reporters the dispute had stemmed from a property disagreement, per NBC.
Cheptegei lived in an area of Kenya known for being well-suited to high-altitude training, as noted by The Associated Press. She earned a spot competing at Paris, her first Olympic Games, after completing the Abu Dhabi Marathon in 2 hours and 22 minutes in 2022, a Ugandan record. The runner also earned a 14th place finish in the marathon event at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest. According to World Athletics, Cheptegei’s “most notable achievement was her victory in the up and downhill race at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in 2022.”
“World Athletics is shocked and deeply saddened to learn that Ugandan distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei died tragically on Thursday (5 September) as a result of an alleged domestic abuse attack,” the organization said in a statement.
“Our sport has lost a talented athlete in the most tragic and unthinkable circumstances,” said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe. “Rebecca was an incredibly versatile runner who still had lots left to give on the roads, mountains and cross country trails.
“I have been in touch with our Council Members in Africa to see how we can help not only in our capacity as governing body of the sport Rebecca competed in, but to assess how our safeguarding policies might be enhanced to include abuse outside of the sport, and bringing together stakeholders from all areas of athletics to combine forces to protect our female athletes to the best of our abilities from abuse of all kinds.”
Donald Rukare, the president of the Uganda Olympic Committee, wrote on X/Twitter that the attack was a “cowardly and senseless act that has led to the loss of a great athlete.”
Cheptegei’s killing is the latest in a series of domestic-violence-related deaths of female runners in the region, compounding a shocking uptick in instances of femicide in Kenya and other African countries. In 2021, 25-year-old Agnes Jebet Tirop, a top-tier Kenyan marathoner and Olympian at the Tokyo Games was stabbed to death at her home in Iten. A month before her death, Tirop had set a world record in a 10-kilometer road race. Her husband was subsequently charged in the slaying, and his court case remains ongoing. Less than a year after Tirop’s killing, Kenyan-born Damaris Muthee Mutua — who competed for Bahrain — was found dead in her home after being strangled. Per the AP, a male runner from Ethiopia with whom she was in a relationship was charged with murder.
Njeri wa Migwi, executive director of Usikimye, a Kenyan nonprofit supporting victims of gender-based violence told The Times that Cheptegei’s tragic death is “part of a larger, disturbing pattern of violence against women, including high-profile female athletes.”
“It’s genuinely a huge alarm,” Zaha Indimuli, an organizer for End Femicide Kenya, told the outlet. “We are all scared.”
“I can’t even explain the horror of what she might have gone through,” Ms. Indimuli said, adding that the killing of a high-ranking athlete gave her the sense that no woman was safe. “Women are constant walking targets for perpetrators,”
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