‘Kenya’s jewel’ runner Tirop stabbed to death at home

ONE of the world’s best distance runners has been found stabbed to death at her home in Kenya, with police treating her husband as a suspect.

Agnes Tirop, 25, finished fourth over 5,000m at this summer’s Olympics before breaking the women-only 10km road race world record last month.

She has twice won world 10,000m bronze medals. She was separated from her husband, Emmanuel Ibrahim Kipleting, who also had a spell as her coach.

“Police found Tirop on the bed and a pool of blood on the floor,” said Tom Makori, head of police for Iten region.

“They saw she had been stabbed in the neck, which led us to believe it was a knife wound. Her husband is still at large.” Kenya is a distance-running powerhouse, with Tirop tipped to follow Olympic and world champions.

Athletics Kenya said: “Kenya has lost a jewel who was one of the fastest-rising athletics giants on the international stage.” Tirop won world junior 5,000m bronze in 2011 and 2014, as well as world junior cross-country silver in 2013.

In 2015 she unexpectedly won the world senior cross-country title aged 19 to become the second-youngest woman ever to claim gold after Zola Budd.

World 10,000m bronzes followed in 2017 and 2019, before she narrowly missed out on the podium over 5,000m at this summer’s Olympics, finishing less than a second outside the medals as Holland’s Sifan Hassan won gold.

She competed over 10km in Geneva this month, taking second. President Uhuru Kenyatta 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.”