[Editor’s Note: This poem, written by Angie Funtanilla, is dedicated to 2024 Olympian, and 2022 World Mountain Running Up and Down champion, Rebecca Cheptegei of Uganda, who recently lost her life in a violent assault at her home in Kenya. All at iRunFar would like to offer our deepest sympathy to Rebecca’s family and loved ones. May she rest in peace.]
Rebecca Cheptegei, 2022 World Mountain Working Championships Up and Down Champion. Photograph: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
She might have been scared
on that begin line in Paris,
nervous is probably going extra correct,
because the seconds ticked right down to her Olympic Marathon debut.
Uganda on the road,
the black, yellow, and purple
daring repeating colours,
her flag stitched simply above her coronary heart
that she poured onto pavement
alongside the swanky Seine and Tuileries Backyard.
Soaking all of it in with a
face all enterprise and self-discipline,
what bought her right here to this time limit,
to run for her homeland, future,
wellbeing, kids and Self.
To stay nicely, race nicely,
one step at a time and so she did
to the Palace of Versailles and again.
Crossed the end in a stacked subject,
her debut ranked forty fourth.
Cheptegei, eternally within the books,
regardless of her physique burned on goal,
torched by the hand of one other,
regardless of her unimaginable early passing,
Cheptegei, eternally etched in magnetic historical past.