Athletics loses “jewel”: world record holder apparently murdered by her husband

Athletics loses “jewel”
World record holder apparently murdered by her husband

At the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Agnes Jebet Tirop just missed a medal, and shortly afterwards she set a world record of ten kilometers on the road in Germany. Now the 26-year-old is found dead in her house. According to initial evidence, the Kenyan athlete was stabbed to death.

The Olympic fourth and road world record holder Agnes Jebet Tirop from Kenya was found dead in her house, according to the Kenyan Athletics Association. Media reports showed photos of a police operation in Iten in the north-west of the country, where many runners live and train. Kenya has lost “a jewel”, the association said: “She was allegedly stabbed by her husband.” They are beside themselves with grief for the aspiring runner and are still working to find out details about her death. She would have turned 26 on October 23.

A month ago in a race in Herzogenaurach with a time of 30:10 minutes, Tirop had improved a world record over ten kilometers on the road in all-women races by 28 seconds and was last on October 3rd in a road race in Geneva over the same distance. The official ratification of the record by World Athletics is still pending.

The 25-year-old won the bronze medal at the 2017 World Championships in London and 2019 in Doha over 10,000 meters, and at the title fights in Qatar she also set her personal best with 30: 25.20 minutes. That year, Tirop took part in the Olympic Games in Tokyo for Kenya, where she finished fourth over 5000 meters in August. She missed the bronze medal with a personal best time of 14: 39.62 minutes by less than a second.

As a 19-year-old, Tirop won the World Cup title in 2015 as the second youngest ever winner in this competition after Zola Budd, who was born in South Africa and who has since started for Great Britain because of the boycott of the apartheid system, who prevailed in 1985 and 1986. Before that, she had already won U20 gold in 2013 with the Kenyan team in cross.

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