Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Athletics lose “jewel”
World record holder apparently killed by her husband

At the Tokyo Olympics, Agnes Jebet Tirop missed a medal and soon after set a world record of ten kilometers on the German road. Now the 26-year-old appears dead in her home. According to initial evidence, the Kenyan athlete was stabbed to death.

Kenya’s fourth Olympian and world record holder Agnes Jebet Tirop was found dead in her home, according to the Kenya Athletics Association. Media reports showed photos of a police operation in Iten, in the northwest 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 would-be running back and are still working to find out the details about her death. He would have turned 26 on October 23.

A month ago, in a race at Herzogenaurach with a time of 30:10 minutes, Tirop had improved a world record in ten kilometers on the road in pure women’s races by 28 seconds and was the last on October 3 in a race in route in Geneva about the same distance. 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 in the title fights in Qatar she also set her personal best with 30: 25.20 minutes. That year, Tirop participated in the Tokyo Olympics for Kenya, where she finished fourth in the 5000 meters in August. He missed the bronze medal with a personal best time of 14: 39.62 minutes by less than a second.

At 19, Tirop won the World Cup title in 2015 as the second-youngest winner in this competition after Zola Budd, who was born in South Africa and who left for Britain in the meantime due to the boycott of the apartheid system. , which prevailed in 1985 and 1986. Before that, he had won U-20 gold in 2013 with the Kenyan cross-country team.