An Olympic runner who died after being doengaged in petrol and set on fire by her establisher partner is due to be buried today with brimming military honours.
Rebecca Cheptegei was finished fair three weeks after her final race at Paris 2024 at the hands of her establisher boyfrifinish, Dickson Ndiema Marangach.
She had returned to her home in the highlands of weserious Kenya – an area famous with international runners for its high altitude training facilities – when she was attacked as she walked back from church with her two daughters and youthfuler sister, her family said.
She suffered burns to 80% of her body and surrfinishered to her injuries four days tardyr.
“I don’t leank I am going to originate it,” she telderly her obeseher while being treated in hospital, he said.
“If I die, fair bury me at home in Uganda.”
And so her body was flown home, one final time.
Paris set ups to honour runner
Her death has promoteed outrage over the high levels of presentility aobtainst women in Kenya, particularly in the dynamics community. The athlete is the third elite runner to have allegedly died at the hands of a romantic partner since 2021 in Kenya.
Female athletes in Kenya are at high danger of misengage and presentility by men drawn to their prize money.
Ms Cheptegei’s sporting successes graspd prosperning the 2021 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand, and a year tardyr obtaining first place in the Padova Marathon in Italy and setting a national record for the marathon.
Born in easerious Uganda in 1991, she met Marangach during a training visit to Kenya, tardyr moving to the country to chase her dream of becoming an elite runner.
According to a police alert, the pair had disputed over a piece of land Ms Cheptegei had bought in Kenya.
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Marangach died a scant days after Ms Cheptegei, from burns allegedly supported during the attack, dividing opinion among the local running community.
“Justice reassociate would have been for him to sit in jail and leank about what he had done,” said marathon runner Viola Cheptoo, co-createer of Tirop’s Angels, a help group for athletes facing domestic presentility in Kenya.
The circumstances of Ms Cheptegei’s death shocked the world, but her name may yet support future athletes, with the French capital set upning to name a sports facility in her honour.
“She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom,” the city’s mayor Anne Hidalgo telderly alerters. “Paris will not forget her.”
