Agnes Tirop Kenyan Olympic Runner Found Dead, Police Hunt Husband

Kenyan Olympic runner and two-time world championship bronze medalist Agnes Tirop was discovered useless at her dwelling Wednesday with stab wounds and her husband was lacking and wished for questioning, police mentioned.

 

Elgeyo Marakwet County police chief Tom Makori mentioned they have been trying to find Tirop’s husband after his household reported he had phoned them crying and asking for God’s forgiveness for one thing he had finished.

 

“There are revelations which got here from her husband’s household,” Makori mentioned. The 25-year-old Tirop was discovered useless at her dwelling in Iten in western Kenya, a city famend as a coaching base for distance runners. Kenyan media reported she was discovered with stab wounds in her stomach and neck.

 

Tirop’s automobile, which was parked exterior the house, had its windscreen and home windows smashed, which might point out a home dispute earlier than she was killed, police mentioned.

Kenya’s Nationwide Police Service mentioned Tirop was the sufferer of a “heinous crime” and promised “speedy and complete investigations.”

The Kenyan monitor federation had earlier mentioned Tirop, certainly one of her nation’s rising stars, had allegedly been stabbed by her husband however it was nonetheless working to uncover particulars of the incident.

“Kenya has misplaced a jewel,” Athletics Kenya mentioned. Tirop gained bronze medals within the girls’s 10,000 meters on the 2017 and 2019 world championships and completed fourth within the 5,000 meters on the Tokyo Olympics. Simply final month, Tirop broke the world document within the women-only 10-kilometer highway race in Germany.

Her profession took off when she gained the world cross-country title in 2015 on the age of 19 to turn into the second youngest champion ever within the occasion.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta urged police “to trace down and apprehend the criminals chargeable for the killing of Agnes.” “It’s unsettling, totally unlucky and really unhappy that we’ve misplaced a younger and promising athlete,” Kenyatta mentioned in a press release.

“It’s much more painful that Agnes, a Kenyan hero by all measures, painfully misplaced her younger life by means of a felony act perpetuated by egocentric and cowardly folks.” Worldwide monitor governing physique World Athletics mentioned it was “deeply shocked and saddened” by Tirop’s demise.