The Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died at a Kenyan hospital after sustaining 80% burns to her body following an attack by her partner on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 33-year-old Cheptegei had been receiving treatment at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret city. A spokesperson, Owen Menach, confirmed her death on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donald Rukare, president of Uganda Olympics Committee, said in a post on X: \u201cWe have learnt of the sad passing on of our Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei \u2026 following a vicious attack by her boyfriend. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trans Nzoia County police commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom had said on Monday that Cheptegei\u2019s partner, Dickson Ndiema, bought a container of petrol, poured it on her and set her on fire. \u201cThe couple were heard quarrelling outside their house. During the altercation, the boyfriend was seen pouring a liquid on the woman before burning her,\u201d\u00a0Kosiom told the Standard newspaper\u00a0in Kenya. \u201cThe suspect was also caught by the fire and sustained serious burns.\u201d Ndiema was being treated at the same hospital as Cheptegei.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cheptegei\u2019s parents said their daughter bought land in Trans-Nzoia to be near the country\u2019s many athletic training centres. A report filed by the local police chief states that the couple were heard fighting over the land where the house was built before the fire started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month Cheptegei finished 44th in the marathon at the Paris Olympics and she was 14th in the event at last year\u2019s world championships in Budapest. In 2022, she won the mountain race at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died at a Kenyan hospital after sustaining 80% burns to her body following an attack by her partner on Sunday. The 33-year-old Cheptegei had been receiving treatment at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret city. A spokesperson, Owen Menach, confirmed her death on Thursday. Donald Rukare, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6409,12],"tags":[5304,7556,10446,11526,9331,9088,2808,7234,5241,6159,6825,11525,1063,8029,11466,11385,1707,1253,5396,10381,421,3805,6200,11524,3885,8206,1064,5273,5320,36,10353],"class_list":["post-43803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","category-world-news","tag-attack","tag-budapest","tag-burning","tag-burns","tag-city","tag-container","tag-daughter","tag-death","tag-died","tag-fire","tag-hospital","tag-injuries","tag-kenya","tag-land","tag-marathon","tag-olympic","tag-olympics","tag-paris","tag-peace","tag-petrol","tag-police","tag-president","tag-race","tag-rebecca-cheptegei","tag-thailand","tag-treatment","tag-uganda","tag-woman","tag-women","tag-world","tag-x"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43804,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43803\/revisions\/43804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}