Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei dies after being set on fire by ex-boyfriend

Ugandan marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics, has died from burns four days after police say her former boyfriend poured gasoline on her and set her on fire.

The death of Cheptegei, 33, who was taken to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya with burns over more than 75% of her body on Sunday, was announced by the hospital's director and the Ugandan Athletics Federation.

Cheptegei, who was in the hospital's intensive care unit, "passed today morning at 5:30 a.m. after her organs failed," Owen Menach, the hospital's senior director of clinical services, told Reuters. A full report regarding the circumstances of her death would be released later in the day, he said.

"We have learnt of the sad passing on of our Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei ... following a vicious attack by her boyfriend," Uganda Olympics Committee president Donald Rukare said in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "May her gentle soul rest in peace and we strongly condemn violence against women."

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Who was Rebecca Cheptegei?

Cheptegei, who was born and raised in Cheminy, Uganda, had been training in Trans-Nzoia County in western Kenya. She had purchased and developed land there in Kinyoro, Kenya, to make it easier and less costly to train in Kenya, the Kenyan newspaper The Standard reported.

Cheptegei made her Olympic debut at the Paris Olympics, finishing No. 44 in the women's marathon. 

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She began her career in 2010 and competed in 1,500 meters, 10,000 meters, half-marathons and marathons. She represented Uganda in the 2011 and 2013 World Cross Championships in Punta Umbria and Bydgoszcz, The Standard reported.

In 2022, she won the Padova marathon in Italy, according to Kenyan online news site TUKO.co.ke. Cheptegei also won gold at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022, The BBC reported.

Cheptegei posted her fastest marathon performance (2:22:47) to place second in the Abu Dhabi marathon in December 2022. That time ranks her as the second-fastest female Ugandan marathoner of all time, according to World Athletics statistics.

Her mother, Agnes Ndiema-Cheptegei, described her daughter as "a good child, very polite and she didn't have a lot of issues," Reuters reported.

What happened to Rebecca Cheptegei?

Police said Cheptegei was attacked by a boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, who snuck into Cheptegei's home in Endebess in western Kenya ahead of the attack while she and her two children were at church, Kenyan and Ugandan newspapers reported.

"Upon returning, Dickson, who had procured petrol, began pouring it on Rebecca before he set her ablaze," Trans-Nzoia County police commander Jeremiah Ole Kosiom told The Star newspaper in Nairobi, Kenya. “The two were rescued by neighbors who put out the fire and rushed them to hospital."

Marangach was also burnt in the attack, which police described as a domestic dispute. He is still in intensive care but is improving and stable, the BBC reported.

Joseph Cheptegei, Cheptegei's father, said her daughter and Marangach had been separated for a long time and were involved in a land dispute involving her land in western Kenya. The two were scheduled to appear before the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in Kenya, The Standard reported.

"The land … has brought problems," he told reporters Thursday, adding that he was asking the government to protect her children and properties "so that no one will get into her home and take anything."

Kosiom confirmed Rebecca Cheptegei and Marangach had quarrels over her land and said police are continuing to investigate.

Rebecca Cheptegei is third woman athlete to die in Kenya in 3 years

Cheptegei was the third elite female athlete killed in Kenya since October 2021.

Peter Ogwang, Uganda's minister of state for sports, said Kenyan authorities were investigating the killing, which has shone a spotlight on violence experienced by women in the East African nation.

Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described her death as a loss "to the entire region".

"This tragedy is a stark reminder that we must do more to combat gender-based violence in our society, which in recent years has reared its ugly head in elite sporting circles," he said in a statement.

Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to Kenyan government data from 2022. The survey also found that 41% of married women have faced violence.

African countries collectively recorded the largest number of killings of women, both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the continent's female population, according to a 2022 report by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

In April 2022, Kenyan-born distance runner Damaris Muthee, who competed for Bahrain, was found strangled in the house in Iten, Kenya, where she was training, the BBC reported. 

In October 2021, Olympian runner Agnes Tirop, 25, a rising star in Kenya's highly competitive athletics scene, was found dead in her home in the town of Iten, with multiple stab wounds to the neck. Her husband, Ibrahim Rotich, was charged with her murder and has pleaded not guilty. That case is ongoing.

After Tirop's murder, athletes set up the group Tirop's Angels to combat domestic violence. One of its founders, Joan Chelimo, told Reuters that female athletes were at high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their money.

"They get into these traps of predators who pose in their lives as lovers," she said.

Contributing: Reuters

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