Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei dies after being set on fire, severely burned following Paris Games

WARNING: This story contains details of gender-based violence and murder.

A Ugandan Olympic athlete living in Kenya has died from her injuries after being set on fire by a man believed to be her boyfriend, the head of the country's Olympics committee said on Thursday.

"May her gentle soul rest in peace and we strongly condemn violence against women. This was a cowardly and senseless act that has led to the loss of a great athlete. Her legacy will continue to endure," Donald Rukare, president of Uganda Olympics Committee, said in a post on X.

Kenyan police and medical officials had previously said Rebecca Cheptegei suffered burns on 75 per cent of her body in an attack on Sunday at her house in the town of Endebess in western Trans Nzoia County, situated along the Kenya-Uganda border.

Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said Monday that Dickson Ndiema Marangach — the Kenyan man reported to be Cheptegei's boyfriend — bought a jerrycan of gas, poured it on her and set her ablaze following a disagreement.

Kenya's The Nation reported that 33-year-old Cheptegei had been at church with her two children Sunday afternoon before the attack happened and that, according to a report filed by a local chief, Marangach snuck into her home while she was out. 

The local chief's report stated before the fire started, the pair was heard fighting over the land on which the house was built.

Marangach also sustained burn wounds to 30 per cent of his body, according to Kenya's The Star. 

Both had been taken to the intensive care unit at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in the city of Eldoret, 90 kilometres south of the town where the attack happened. Kenyan government sports official Peter Tum said Wednesday there had also been plans to airlift Cheptegei to capital city Nairobi for treatment. 

Cheptegei's parents said their daughter bought land in Trans Nzoia to be near the country's many athletic training centres.

Her family, speaking to reporters outside the hospital on Tuesday, disputed the claim that Marangach was her boyfriend, saying they were friends who had previously stayed together when she trained in Kenya. 

Cheptegei finished 44th in the women's marathon at the 2024 Paris Olympics last month. She also held the Ugandan women's marathon record of 2:22:47, which she set during the Abu Dhabi Marathon in December 2022. 

The fatal attack on Cheptegei is the latest violent assault against a noted female runner in Kenya in a short span of time.

Kenyan long distance runner Agnes Jebet Tirop was killed in October 2021, just months after she competed in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and finished fourth in the women's 5,000-metre final. She was also a two-time, 10,000-metre bronze medallist at the World Athletics Championships.