Ugandan Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei is receiving remedy in hospital for 75 per cent burns after allegedly being set on hearth by her boyfriend.
Cheptegei had just lately returned to Kenya following the Paris 2024 Olympics, the place she represented Uganda within the marathon.
Police have confirmed Cheptegei was attacked in her home within the western Trans Nzoia County, the place she had been coaching.
Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom stated her former companion had purchased a can of petrol, poured it on her and set her ablaze throughout a disagreement on Sunday.
‘The boyfriend is believed to have sneaked into the compound at round 2pm on Sunday whereas the spouse and the youngsters had been in Church,’ Kosiom stated, as reported by Kenyan newspaper, The Customary.
‘Upon returning, Dickson, who had procured petrol, started pouring it on Rebecca earlier than he set her ablaze.
‘The couple had been heard quarrelling exterior their home. In the course of the altercation, the boyfriend was seen pouring a liquid on the girl earlier than burning her.
‘The suspect was additionally caught by the hearth and sustained critical burns.’
Cheptegei is at present being handled on the Moi Instructing and Referral Hospital in Eldoret metropolis.
Ndiema, who additionally sustained burns, is being handled on the identical hospital.
The Ugandan Athletics Federation confirmed the assault on social media.
‘We remorse to announce that our athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who competed on the Olympics has suffered extreme accidents and is hospitalised at Moi Instructing and Referral Hospital in Eldoret.
‘This follows an incident involving her Kenyan boyfriend pouring petrol and setting hearth on her.’
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Neighbours helped to extinguish the flames, based on native studies, with each being admitted to hospital with intensive burns.
Police found a five-litre jerry can, a bag, and a burned cellphone on the scene of the incident, based on Kenyan newspaper The Nation.
The native police chief acknowledged that the couple had been heard preventing over the land the place the home was constructed earlier than the hearth was began.
Cheptegei was reported to have purchased the land in Trans Nzoia county, situated near the Uganadan border, and constructed a home.
The home is near a number of coaching centres in Kenya.
Cheptegei completed forty fourth within the girls’s marathon on the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games final month.
The 33-year-old had additionally received gold on the World Mountain and Path Operating Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022.
In 2023, Ugandan Olympic runner and steeplechaser Benjamin Kiplagat was discovered lifeless with stab wounds.
In 2022, Kenyan-born Bahraini athlete Damaris Muthee was discovered lifeless with a postmortem report stating that she was strangled within the city of Iten.
Muthee’s dying got here months after two-time World Championship medallist Agnes Tirop was discovered stabbed to dying in the identical city.