Olympian in mourning after brutal attack

The murder of Ugandan Olympian and long-distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei has shocked her friends and family and sent the East African athletics community into disarray.

The 33-year-old mother of two died Thursday morning from severe burns after her ex-boyfriend doused her with petrol and set her alight outside her home in northwestern Kenya on Sunday.

Her mother, Agnes Cheptegei, spoke to reporters outside the hospital where the athlete died. She was so distraught that she paid only a brief tribute. She described her daughter as kind and a “good child”.

Her sister Violet burst into tears as she said, “I’m in pain, but we’ll leave it up to God.”

Cheptegei had just returned from church when she was attacked by her former partner, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, police said. Her young daughters reportedly witnessed the incident and tried to intervene.

For all who pay tribute to her, it was Cheptegei’s generosity that defined her above all.

James Kirwa, who trained with Cheptegei on occasion, spoke to the BBC hours after her death and said he remembered her as a skilled athlete who was kind to her teammates on the running circuit.

“She was a very friendly person and was always very helpful and helped us all, even financially. She brought me training shoes when she came back from the Olympics (in Paris),” said the Ugandan athlete.

Cheptegei was in the French capital to take part in the Olympic marathon, where he finished 44th in a time of 2 hours, 32 minutes and 14 seconds.

Compared to other runners in the region, she achieved modest success.

But you don’t have to win medals to make money. And yet, with the money she earned from competing, she was able to support her family.

At the age of 19, she first represented Uganda in an under-20 competition at the 2010 World Cross Country Championships.

Over time she moved on to longer road races, where she achieved success later in her career.

Her most notable victory came in the uphill and downhill mountain race at the 2022 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

She made her marathon debut in 2021 and ran a personal best of 2 hours, 22 minutes and 47 seconds the following year, making her the second-fastest Ugandan woman of all time.

For much of her running career she served in the Ugandan Army, where she reached the rank of Corporal.

Athletes in East Africa often join their country’s military for the financial support it provides, and it allows them to train on the track rather than serving in the field.

Not much is known about the circumstances under which Cheptegei joined the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, but she was a member of the athletics club and represented her country on the track at the 2011 World Military Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Kirwa said that because of her 14 years of international competition, he looked up to her like an older sister; someone he looked to for support.

“When I started, I almost wanted to give up because it was so hard, but she told me to keep going,” he said.

Cheptegai had moved to Kenya to be near the country’s renowned athletics training centres, in a region bordering her native Uganda.

Ugandan athlete Immaculate Chemutai, who visited Cheptegai in hospital along with others like Kirwa, said she hoped her friend would survive as she had already recovered on Wednesday evening “and her breathing was somehow back to normal”.

“I got the phone call in the morning and the doctor told us we’d lost her. It’s really sad. Rebecca, she’s been so good to us. She’s such a sweetheart… a good person,” she told the BBC.

She loves her family so much, especially the girls. And sometimes she supports us when we need a loan or something – we can apply for it and she can give it.”

Her father Joseph Cheptegei echoed this when he said, “We have lost our breadwinner.”

He added that he was now concerned about the two girls’ education as their mother could no longer support them.

The impact of her death is not only felt by her immediate family and friends.

For some, it fits into a broader pattern of violence against women in the region, where top athletes are not protected by their status.

“I can say that we are still in shock and we are in pain, especially as athletes. And what is happening in Kenya is (yet) another athlete being attacked… so we are not happy,” said Kenyan runner Milcah Chemos Cheywa.

In 2021, world record holder Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death and six months later Damaris Mutua was strangled. Their partners were named as prime suspects in both cases by authorities.

“We call on the public, sports organizations and the government to unite and take meaningful steps to protect women and girls so that more lives are not lost,” said Tirop’s Angels, a group formed after Tirop’s killing.

Sebastian Coe, president of the International Athletics Federation, said his organisation would work with groups on the ground to see how female athletes could be better protected “from all forms of abuse”.

He mourned an athlete who he said “still had a lot to offer.”

For Kirwa, Cheptegei’s death is a great personal loss. He said he had withdrawn from Sunday’s Nairobi City Marathon because he was so upset and “not mentally well”.