KAMPALA (Askume) – Ugandan Olympic distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who died after allegedly spraying petrol on her former partner and setting herself on fire , will be buried with full military honours on Saturday.
Cheptegei returned home to Kenya’s Western Highlands on August 11 after finishing 44th at the Paris Olympics marathon. The region is popular with international runners for its high-altitude training facilities.
This will be his last game.
Kenyan police and Cheptegei’s family allege that her ex-boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Mlangazi, attacked Cheptegei three weeks later as she returned with her two daughters and sister from Jinyo to church in a Luo village.
Her father, Joseph Cheptegei, told Askume his daughter had approached police at least three times to lodge a complaint against Malangach, most recently on August 30, two days after her former partner carried out the gas attack.
He suffered burns over 80% of his body and died four days later.
While being treated in the hospital, she said, she told her father, “I don’t think I’m going to survive.”
“If I die, bury me at home in Uganda.”
Cheptegei’s tragic death sparked outrage over the high levels of violence against women in Kenya, especially in the sports world, with the marathon runner becoming the third top runner to die since 2021, reportedly at the hands of a romantic partner.
One in three Kenyan girls or women aged 15–49 have experienced physical violence, according to 2022 government data.
Rights groups say female athletes in Kenya are at greater risk of exploitation and violence by men lured by prize money, which far exceeds local incomes.
Cheptegei’s athletic achievements include winning the 2021 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand and setting a national marathon record by placing first at the Padua Marathon in Italy a year later.
Born in eastern Uganda in 1991, she met Mlangazi while training in Kenya, where she later moved to pursue her dream of becoming an elite runner.
A few days after the Cheptegei incident, it was reported thatMalangach also died from injuries sustained in the attack , a decision that divided the local running community.
Marathon runner Viola Cheptoo, co-founder of Tyrop’s Angels, a support group for Kenyan athletes suffering from domestic violence, said: “Real justice would be for him to go to jail and reckon with what he has done.”
Cheptegei’s death stunned the world, but his name could inspire future athletes as the French capital celebratesThere are plans to name a sports facility after him .
“In Paris she amazed us. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her independence,” the city’s mayor Anne Hidalgo told reporters. “Paris will never forget her.”
