The late Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has been laid to rest at her ancestral home in Kapsyiwo village, Muimet parish, Bukwo Sub-county, Kongasis County in Bukwo district.
The Saturday burial ceremony was attended by officials from Uganda Athletics Federation, National Sports Council, friends, relatives and government officials.
The athletics federation officials, coaches, and athletes from the entire athletics community paid their final respects to the late Rebecca Cheptegei, offering a condolence of Shs10m.
Cheptegei, who died after allegedly being doused in petrol and set alight by her former partner, was given full military honors.
Cheptegei, 33, returned to her home in the highlands of western Kenya after coming 44th in the marathon at the Paris Olympics on August 11, 2024.
Three weeks later her former boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, allegedly attacked Cheptegei as she returned from church with her two daughters and younger sister in the village of Kinyoro, Kenya, police and her family said.
Her father, Joseph Cheptegei, told Reuters that his daughter had approached police at least three times to file complaints against Marangach, most recently on Aug. 30, two days before the alleged attack by her former partner.
She suffered burns to 80% of her body and succumbed to her injuries four days later.
“I don’t think I am going to make it,” she told her father while being treated in the hospital, he said.
“If I die, just bury me at home in Uganda.”
Hundreds of mourners, including fellow Olympians from Uganda and Kenya, gathered for her funeral in Bukwo in Uganda’s northeast near the border with Kenya.
In speeches she was fondly eulogized as a hero, a mother and sister, and afterward her body was lowered into her grave minutes after 5 p.m.
She was buried in full military honors, including a gun salute by the Ugandan military of which she was a member.
“She embodied the admirable spirit of resilience, selflessness, generosity and hard work, which worked together to catapult her to international glory,” Kipchumba Murkomen, Kenya’s sports minister said as he eulogized the athlete.
Her death, he said, had marked “a tragic end to a blossoming life.”
Cheptegei’s death sparked anger over the high levels of violence against women in Kenya, particularly in the athletics community, with the marathoner becoming the third elite runner to allegedly die at the hands of a romantic partner since 2021.
Credit: Reuters