Agnes Jebet Tirop of Kenya celebrates winning bronze in the Women's 10,000 Metres final. Photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images for IAAF
Olympian Agnes Tirop has been found stabbed to death in her hometown of Iten in western Kenya. Local police have confirmed that her husband, whose whereabouts are unknown, is a suspect in her murder. The 25-year-old, who finished fourth in the 5,000m final at the Tokyo Olympics, was first reported missing on Tuesday night before her body was discovered with stab wounds to her neck and stomach on Wednesday. “Her husband is still at large, and preliminary investigations tell us her husband is a suspect because he cannot be found,” the head of police for the region, Tom Makori, told local journalists. “Police are trying to find her husband so he can explain what happened to Tirop.” Makori added that police “found Tirop on the bed,” with “a pool of blood on the floor.”Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has paid tribute to a “young and promising athlete” who only last month set a new women’s-only world record for the 10km road race, shaving almost 30 seconds off the previous record set in 2002. “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, she had brought our country so much glory through her exploits on the global athletics stage including in this year's 2020 Tokyo Olympics where she was part of the Kenyan team in Japan,” Kenyatta said. “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. I urge our law enforcement agencies led by the National Police Service to track down and apprehend the criminals responsible for the killing of Agnes so that they can face the full force of the law.”Tirop has twice won bronze in the 10,000m event at the World Athletics Championships and was a gold medallist at the 2015 World Cross Country Championships.
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