Olympics 10,000 metres champion, Joshua Cheptegei’s rallying call to his fellow Ugandan athletes who have been training in Kenya to return home in the wake of Rebecca Cheptegei’s death, has exposed the unease among foreign athletes who flock to Iten in Elgeyo Marakwet County for high altitude training.
“I challenge athletes who are now training in Kenya, especially those who were at the (2024) Olympics, that the government now has better facilities, especially in Teryet but there is also need to improve infrastructure especially roads so that athletes can continue training at their home ground so that we avoid such cases. We don’t want to bring an athlete back home in a casket as we have witnessed,” Cheptegei, who captained Team Uganda at the Olympics, said on Saturday during Rebecca’s burial in Amanang, Bukwo District in eastern Uganda.
He urged Ugandan athletes training in Kenya to make use of Teryet High Altitude Camp in Kapchorwa , eastern Uganda, saying it promises to be a better training area as it has everything that Kenya’s high altitude training region of Iten is famous for.
Rebecca,33, who was a sergent in Uganda People’s Defence Forces, died on September 5 at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, where she had been admitted after sustaining 80 percent burns after her ex-boyfriend Dickson Ndiema Marangach doused her with petrol, and set her aflame.
The Ugandan Olympian had relocated to Kenya to train, and built a house in Endebes, Trans Nzoia County.
“Its a shame that we are receiving an athlete in a casket today and we hope this is the last case we are witnessing. No athlete should go through such an act and I want to ask my sisters who have been training in Kenya to come back home. I’m not being rude but we have to end the menace because we have seen the trend is ongoing and we just don’t want to lose an athlete again in such a manner,” Cheptegei, who captained Uganda at the 2024 Olympics, said.
“We lost Agnes Tirop in such a manner and the whole world cried and we thought it would be the end but we keep seeing the same thing repeating itself. Gender-based violence has to stop in our communities because apart from athletes, we have women outside there who are also going through tough times,” Cheptegei said.
Cheptegei used to train in Kenya with the Global Sports Communications group in Kaptagat, Elgeyo Marakwet County till 2025 when he relocated to Kapchorwa in Uganda “after comparing the two regions and finding no major difference’.
“I trained in Kaptagat with Eliud Kipchoge who is also my mentor and it reached a point where I discovered that there was no big difference with Kapchorwa back at home, and I decided to go back. Being focused and hard work in training is what helped me and brought out good results,” Cheptegei told Nation Sport in June.
Rebecca is the second Ugandan athlete to die in Kenya. In 2021, Ugandan runner Benjamin Kiplagat was found dead in a car with stab wounds to his chest and neck in Kimumu near Eldoret. Kiplagat, 34, reached the semi-finals of the 2012 London Olympics in the 3,000m steeplechase.
Rebecca is the fourth female athlete to have been killedin Kenya in the past three years. In 2021, award-winning runner Agnes Jebet Tirop was stabbed to death by her boyfriend at her home.
The same week Tirop died in 2021, runner Edith Muthoni was murdered in a house in Kirinyaga. Her boyfriend was the key suspect.
In 2022, Kenyan-born Bahraini runner, Damaris Muthee Mutua was found strangled in Iten.
Due to its high altitude and conducive climate, Iten is a popular destination for global athletics stars seeking high altitude training. A large number of Ugandan athletes often camp in Iten, Elgeyo Marakwet County, before major athletics championships.
Like Iten with Kenya, Kapchorwa has produced most of Uganda’s award-winning athletes. Some of the Ugandan athletes who train in Kenya include marathoner Stella Chesang who finished eighth at the 2024 Olympic Games, 5,000m runner Belinda Chemutai, 10,000m runner Joy Cheptoyek, 5,000m specialist Sarah Chelangat, marathoner Emmaculate Chemutai, Loise Chepkwemoi, and Linet Toroitich.
Other athletes who have trained in Iten in the past include multiple Olympics gold medallist Mo Farah from UK, 2013 European Championships 3,000m silver medalist Laura Weightman, Algeria’s 1,500m runner Tauofik Makhloufi, Turkey’s World Indoor 1,500m silver medallist IIham Tanui Ozbilen, and a host of runners from Rwanda, Burundi, South Africa, USA, Ethiopia and Uganda.
