Written by Elias Biryabarema and Ammu Kannampilly
KAMPALA (Reuters) – Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who died after allegedly being doused with petrol and set on fire by her lover, was buried on Saturday with full military honors at her ancestral home in northeastern Uganda.
Cheptegei, 33, returned to his home in the highlands of western Kenya, an area popular with international runners for its elite training facilities, after finishing 44th in the Paris Olympics on August 11.
It would be his last race.
Three weeks later her ex-boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, attacked Cheptegei when she was returning from church with her two daughters and younger sister in Kinyoro area, Kenyan police and her family said.
Her father Joseph Cheptegei told Reuters that his daughter had gone to the police at least three times to file complaints against Marangach, most recently on August 30, two days before the alleged attack on her ex-boyfriend.
He burned up to 80% of his body and died four days later.
“I don't think I'm going to make it,” he told his father while he was being treated at the hospital, he said.
“If I die, just bury me at home in Uganda.”
Hundreds of mourners, including Olympians from Uganda and Kenya, gathered at his funeral in Bukwo in northeastern Uganda near the Kenyan border.
In her speech she was hailed as a hero, mother and sister, after which her body was lowered into her grave at 5:00 p.m. (1200 GMT).
He was buried with full military honors, including a gun salute from the Ugandan soldiers he was a member of.
“He showed an admirable spirit of tenacity, self-sacrifice, charity and hard work, which worked together to bring him fame around the world,” said Kipchumba Murkomen, the minister of Sports in Kenya when he praised the athlete.
His death, he said, marked a “sad end to a blossoming life.”
WOMAN OFFENDERS ARE NOT DANGEROUS
Cheptegei's death sparked outrage over the high level of violence against women in Kenya, particularly in the athletics community, with the athlete becoming the third elite athlete to have died at the hands of a partner since 2021.
One in three Kenyan girls or women aged 15-49 have been physically abused, according to 2022 government data.
Rights groups say that female athletes in Kenya are at high risk of exploitation and violence by men who are attracted by their prizes, which far exceed the income earned by local people.
Cheptegei's sporting achievements include winning the 2021 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand, and a year later he took first place in the Padova Marathon in Italy and set a national marathon record.
Born in eastern Uganda in 1991, he met Marangach during a visit to Kenya, and later moved to the country to pursue his dream of becoming a professional athlete.
Marangach died a few days after Cheptegei, from burns he allegedly caused during the attack, dividing opinion among the local community.
“Really justice would be for him to sit in prison and think about what he did,” said marathon runner Viola Cheptoo, founder of Tirop's Angels, a support group for athletes facing domestic violence in Kenya.
The circumstances of Cheptegei's death shocked the world, but his name can still inspire future athletes, as the French capital plans to name a sports stadium in his honour.
“She has impressed us here in Paris. We have seen her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom,” the city's mayor Anne Hidalgo told the media. “Paris will never forget him.”
