Who killed Agnes Tirop? World record-holder and Olympic athlete stabbed to death
Noted Olympian athlete Agnes Tirop from Kenya has been found stabbed to death at her home, barely two months after finishing fourth in the 5000-meter long-distance event at Tokyo Olympics. She clinched the bronze medal twice at the World Athletics Championships at the 2017 London games and again in Doha in 2019. Last month, the 25-year-old champion set a new world record at the women's 10 km road race in Germany, with timing of 30:01 mins.
On October 13, 2021, the star athlete was found dead at her home in Iten, a town in Western Kenya. Just a day before, Tirop's father had filed a missing report about her. According to the local head of the police, when the cops reached her house for enquiring, "they found Tirop on the bed and there was a pool of blood on the floor. They saw she had been stabbed in the neck, which led us to believe it was a knife wound, and we believe that is what caused her death." Her body had several stab wounds in the neck and abdomen region. Meanwhile, her husband, who is a suspect in the murder, is still at large.
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Police are on the lookout for Tirop's husband Emmanuel Ibrahim Kipleting, as they mentioned, "Her husband is still at large, and preliminary investigations tell us her husband is a suspect because he cannot be found. Police are trying to find her husband so he can explain what happened to Tirop." He is reported to have called Tirop’s parents saying that he’d committed something wrong.
Born in 1995, Agnes Jebet Tirop's rise to prominence happened in 2012, when she became a runner-up at the Kenyan Cross Country Championships. The same year she won a bronze at the international Junior championships. She repeated her feat again in 2014. In 2016, Tirop won the gold at the World Cross Country Championships in China, becoming the second-youngest woman after Zola Budd to claim the feat.
Her shocking death was mourned by the President of Kenya who said, "It is unsettling, utterly unfortunate and very sad that we've lost a young and promising athlete who, at a young age of 25 years, had brought our country so much glory. It is even more painful that Agnes, a Kenyan hero by all measures, painfully lost her young life through a criminal act perpetuated by selfish and cowardly people."
President Uhuru Kenyatta further added, "I urge our law enforcement agencies to track down and apprehend the criminals responsible for the killing of Agnes so that they can face the full force of the law."
Kenya's athletics association released a statement saying, "Athletics Kenya are distraught to learn about the untimely death of World 10,000m bronze medallist Agnes Tirop. We are still working to unearth more details surrounding her demise. Kenya has lost a jewel who was one of the fastest-rising athletics giants on the international stage, thanks to her eye-catching performances on the track."
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach also grieved her tragic death saying, “Her performances at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 gave hope and inspiration to so many people. My thoughts go to the Kenyan Olympic community and especially to her friends and family."