Rebecca Cheptegei’s father speaks out after the tragic death of the Ugandan Olympian.

“I am very sad because I have lost my daughter,” Joseph Cheptegei told reporters on Thursday, September 5, at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) in Eldoret, Kenya, where the long-distance runner died. “I am asking for your help so that the person who killed my daughter can be prosecuted.”

Cheptegei, 33, died of “complete organ failure” four days after her former partner Dickson Ndiema allegedly doused her with petrol and set her on fire in their home in Trans Nzoia County in western Kenya, authorities said.

The athlete suffered burns to almost 80 percent of her body in the attack, in which Ndiema was also seriously injured.

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“The perpetrator who caused pain to my daughter is a murderer and I have yet to see what the security officials are doing,” the father said of Ndiema. “He is still at large and could even escape.”

The long-distance runner had just returned from church with her daughters on Sunday, September 1, and was heard arguing with Ndiema over the land on which she had built a house at the time of the incident, ABC News reported.

Cheptegei, a mother of two young daughters, competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics, where she finished 44th with a season’s best of 2:32:14. Her previous best marathon time came in December 2022, when she ran 2:22.47 at the Abu Dhabi Marathon.

The runner’s death came nearly three years after 25-year-old Kenyan Olympian Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death by her husband.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in more than 170 languages.