Paris Olympic marathoner Rebecca Cheptegei of Uganda was attacked in her house in Trans Nzoia County, Kenya on Sunday, BBC Information reported. The runner’s Kenyan boyfriend reportedly doused her in gasoline from a jerry can throughout an argument earlier than setting her on hearth. Cheptegei sustained critical burns protecting 75 per cent of her physique and was taken to hospital, the place she stays in vital situation.
Cheptegei’s attacker, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, was additionally injured by the flames and was hospitalized. The couple was reportedly overheard arguing exterior the home simply earlier than the assault came about. The athlete and her assailant have been rescued from the fireplace by neighbours, and each burn victims are receiving remedy on the Moi Educating and Referral Hospital in Eldoret Metropolis, Kenya.
We remorse to announce that our athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who competed on the Olympics has suffered extreme accidents and is hospitalized at Moi Educating and Referral Hospital in Eldoret. This follows an incident involving her Kenyan boyfriend pouring petrol and setting hearth on her pic.twitter.com/rgnWvgTpkb
— UGANDA ATHLETICS FEDERATION🇺🇬🇺🇬 UAF (@UgaAthletics2) September 3, 2024
Cheptegei, 33, returned to her house final month after a Forty fourth-place end within the ladies’s marathon on the Paris Olympics with a time of two:32:14. She owns a home within the Trans Nzoia County space to make the most of Kenya’s athletic amenities whereas coaching. The Ugandan runner gained gold within the up and down mountain race on the 2022 World Mountain and Path Working Championships in Thailand.
Tragically, this isn’t the primary reported case of home assault in opposition to an elite athlete in East Africa–in 2021, Kenya’s two-time 10,000m world championship bronze medallist, Agnes Tirop, was discovered stabbed to loss of life by her husband at her house in Iten, Kenya.
Tirop’s husband, Emmanuel Ibrahim Kipleting, was arrested after fleeing Iten by automobile, and was discovered a whole bunch of kilometres away. The alleged assailant is predicted to be charged with Tirop’s homicide, regardless of denying the accusations. Tirop was 25.
