The Kenyan police are looking this Thursday for the husband of Agnes Tirop, a promising 25-year-old athlete whose murder revealed the day before has aroused emotion in the country and in the world of athletics.
The double world medalist in the 10,000m (in 2017 and 2019) and 4th in the last Tokyo Olympics over 5,000m was found stabbed dead at her home, in Iten, a high-altitude town in western Kenya, where she is train many long-distance and middle-distance runners.
“We are moving forward in the search for the killer”, Tom Makori, police commander of the Keiyo North district, where Iten is located, told AFP on Thursday. The day before, Makori had claimed that Emmanuel Rotich, the husband of Agnes Tirop, was the main suspect, “Having made a call to Tirop’s parents to tell them that he had done something wrong”.
The brutal death of Tirop made the headlines of many media this Thursday in Kenya, struck by emotion and amazement. “The murder of a champion”, headlines the daily The Daily Nation, “The life of an athlete cruelly shattered”, deplores The Star. “Agnes Tirop had her whole life ahead of her and a flourishing career to come”, also writes The Daily Nation.
Revealed in 2015 at just 19
The Kenyan Athletics Federation has announced that it will suspend competitions for two weeks in honor of Agnes Tirop and another long-distance runner, Hosea Macharinyang, who recently died of what was called suicide.
Agnes Tirop broke the 10 km road world record a month ago in an all-female race in 30:01 seconds in Herzogenaurach (Germany).
She was revealed in 2015 when she won the title of world cross-country champion at just 19, becoming the youngest athlete to sign such a performance since South African Zola Budd in 1985.
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