Rebecca Cheptegei, Ugandan Olympic marathoner, dies at 33 after gasoline attack from partner

Rebecca Cheptegei, a long-distance runner from Uganda who competed in the women’s marathon at the recent Summer Olympics in Paris, has died days after being doused in gasoline and then set on fire by her partner. She was 33.

Cheptegei was attacked Monday at her home in Trans Nzoia County in Kenya. Police commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom told the media that Cheptegei’s partner, Dickson Ndiema, bought a can of gasoline, poured it over her during an argument, and then lit her on fire.

Cheptegei was quickly brought to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in the city of Eldoret. She arrived fully sedated with burns over 80% of her body. Hospital spokesperson Owen Menach said Thursday that Cheptegei died earlier that morning of multiple organ failures.

Ndiema also sustained burns and is receiving treatment at the same hospital.

Rebecca’s father, Joseph Cheptegei, said via the Associated Press that his daughter was “very supportive” and he wants her murderer brought to justice.

“As it is now, the criminal who harmed my daughter is a murderer and I am yet to see what the security officials are doing,” he said. “He is still free and might even flee.”

Stats on violence against women, especially intimate partner violence, in Kenya are staggering. According to the government, nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, with that number rising to 41% among married women.

Cheptegei is the third Ugandan female athlete since 2021 to have died in an attack from an intimate partner. Up-and-coming runner Agnes Tirop, only 25, was found dead in her home in 2021 from multiple stab wounds. The case is ongoing, but her husband Ibrahim Rotich has been charged with her murder and has pleaded not guilty. In 2022, the decomposing body of Ugandan-born Bahrain runner Damaris Muthee was found at the home of an Ethiopian runner. A postmortem report revealed she was strangled. The Ethiopian runner is the main suspect in her murder, but he has not yet been apprehended.

Fellow Ugandan athlete James Kirwa, who visited Cheptegai in the hospital, had wonderful things to say about his close friend, telling the BBC she “was a very affable person. [She] helped us all even financially and she brought me training shoes when she came back from the Olympics. She was like an older sister to me.”