Ugandan runner Rebecca Cheptegei: Olympian mourned after vicious attack

The killing of Ugandan Olympian and long-distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei has devastated her family and friends – and has left the East African athletics group reeling.

Cheptegei died on Thursday morning after struggling extreme burns – her ex-boyfriend doused her in petrol and set her on hearth on Sunday outdoors her home in north-west Kenya.

Talking outdoors the Kenyan hospital the place her daughter had been handled, Agnes Cheptegei was solely capable of pay a short tribute, describing her as kind-hearted.

Her sister, Violet, broke down as she stated: “I’m in ache however we go away it to God.”

Cheptegei had simply returned from church when she was attacked by her former associate, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, police say. Her two younger daughters are reported to should have witnessed all of it and tried to intervene.

Her mates and fellow athletes have described her as a beneficiant and type athlete.

James Kirwa – who was Cheptegei’s occasional coaching associate – spoke the BBC hours after her loss of life.

He remembered the 33-year-old as an skilled athlete who was form to her teammates on the working circuit.

“She was a really affable particular person and was all the time very useful and helped us all even financially. She introduced me coaching footwear when she got here again from the [Paris] Olympics,” he stated.

The mother-of-two had been within the French capital competing within the marathon, coming forty fourth in a time of two hours, 32 minutes and 14 seconds.

Compared to different runners within the area she achieved modest success.

However you don’t should win medals to earn cash – and she or he was nonetheless capable of assist assist her household together with her earnings from collaborating in races.

At 19, she first represented Uganda in an under-20 race on the 2010 World Cross Nation Championships.

Over time she transitioned to longer highway races, attaining success later in her profession.

Her most notable victory got here within the up-and-downhill mountain race on the 2022 World Mountain and Path Operating Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

She made her marathon debut in 2021 and recorded a private better of two hours 22 minutes and 47 seconds the next 12 months, making her the second-fastest Ugandan girl of all time.

For a lot of her working profession she was additionally a member of the Ugandan military, attaining the rank of corporal.

Athletes in East Africa typically be a part of their nation’s military for the monetary backing it permits them – and so they get to coach on the monitor as a substitute of serving within the area.

Not a lot is thought in regards to the circumstances of how Cheptegei joined the Uganda Folks’s Defence Forces, however she was a member of its athletics membership and represented her nation on the monitor on the World Army Video games in Rio de Janeiro in 2011.

Due to her 14 years of worldwide competitors, Kirwa stated he regarded as much as her as an older sister – somebody he turned to for assist.

“After I first began, I nearly gave up as a result of it was very tough, however she informed me you need to solider on,” he stated.

The area borders her house space in Uganda and is near Kenya’s elite athletics coaching centres, which was why she lived there.

Ugandan athlete Immaculate Chemutai, who had been visiting Cheptegai on the hospital with others like Kirwa, stated she had hoped her good friend would possibly survive as she had improved by Wednesday night “and the respiration was someway settled”.

“Within the morning I acquired the cellphone name and the physician informed us that we have misplaced her. It is actually unhappy. Rebecca, she has been so good to us. She could be very pretty… a great particular person,” she informed the BBC.

“She likes her household a lot, particularly the women.

“And he or she typically helps us if we’d like some mortgage or one thing like that we will request it and she or he can provide.”

Her father Joseph Cheptegei reiterated this when he stated: “Now we have misplaced our breadwinner.”

He added that he was now nervous in regards to the two ladies’ schooling with out their mom to assist them.

The influence of her loss of life is being felt past her quick household and mates.

For some it matches right into a wider sample of violence towards girls within the area the place prime athletes aren’t protected by their standing.

“I can say we’re nonetheless in shock, and we’re in ache, particularly as athletes, and this factor occurring in Kenya, that is [another] time an athlete is being attacked… so we aren’t glad,” Kenyan runner Milcah Chemos Cheywa stated.

In 2021, world-record holder Agnes Tirop was stabbed to loss of life and 6 months later Damaris Mutua was strangled. Their companions have been recognized as the primary suspects in each circumstances by the authorities.

“We urge the general public, sports activities our bodies, and the federal government to unite in taking significant steps to guard girls and ladies, making certain that no more lives are misplaced,” stated Tirop’s Angels, a bunch arrange within the wake of Tirop’s killing.

Sebastian Coe, the president of athletics’ world governing physique, stated his organisation would work with teams on the bottom to see how feminine athletes might be higher protected “from abuse of all types”.

He mourned an athlete who he stated “nonetheless had heaps to offer”.

For Kirwa, Cheptegei’s loss of life represents a profound private loss and he stated he had cancelled his participation in Sunday’s Nairobi Metropolis Marathon as he was so upset and “not in a great place mentally”.