East-African Athletics’ Murdered Angels
March 28, 2025
Insults and Injuries
March 30, 2025
By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (March 28th 2025)
Biwott’s Struggle
Former Kenyan long distance runner Simion Biwott was forced to retire through injury more than two decades ago. Now, he works with the Veterans’ Association to try to help retired Kenyan athletes cope with the struggles of life after sport. He also champions the struggle for social justice, particularly for female athletes in their fight against gender-based exploitation and gender-based violence.
Kenya, in particular, has a big problem with the exploitation of female runners and massive violence being used against them to control and exploit their talent. Unscrupulous men attach themselves to these talented female athletes, both romantically and as coaches whether they have the skills and experience to coach or not.
They exploit these athletes shamefully. Some are bled dry and then kicked out after they have been fleeced of their earnings, having to start again. They are, to some extent the fortunate ones, as Kenya has an even bigger problem. Exploitation is bad enough, but those brave enough to stand up to their abusers can face even worse problems, violence or even murder. In the last five years, four very, very talented female athletes have been murdered in Kenya, the most recent being Uganda’s Olympic Marathon runner, Rebecca Cheptegui.
Combatting Gender-Based Violence
Biwott explains what the Veterans’ Association is doing to combat this atrocious problem.
“It is unfortunate that these incidents are coming at a time when Kenya was enjoying a better place, especially in athletics, when it came to women,” he said.
“We had seen the upsurge of young women coming to the top when it came to athletics. You remember even the Olympic medals that Kenya managed to win majorly came from women, so the only unfortunate thing is there are these incidents that a few, or some, have been murdered by their so-called [spouses] or men who are purporting to be their boyfriends, so it’s a really unfortunate thing and as veterans, we condemn the acts and we have been trying to engage with the Federation to see the way forward if they can bring on board, maybe the veterans to also talk to the young athletes to still continue nurturing the values that the older generation lived in.”
Biwott is understandably very concerned about both the situation and what can be done to ensure a brighter future for Kenyan athletes, especially females.
“We have seen how the lives of men have been reduced to something that you can wake up and kill your friend without a blink of an eye, so it’s something that we’re condemning and also, we are trying to find a space where we can engage with the young athletes also to talk to them to value life and also make sure that they live a life that they will not come to regret tomorrow, maybe after they have taken somebody’s life,” he said. “It’s not something good!”
The Ibrahim Rotich Outrage
Agnes Tirop, one of the up-and-coming stars of Kenyan athletics had only just broken the road race world record for the 10Km in September 2021. She was just 25-years-old with the world at her feet, but on October 13th 2021 she was brutally murdered. She had been stabbed 25 times in the throat and stomach. Her husband and so-called coach, Ibrahim Rotich, was the prime suspect and was arrested fairly quickly.
He’s currently on trial, but he’s been given bail and failed to appear in court twice this year. He is set to forfeit 400,000 Kenyan Shillings (about £2400) of the surety put forward for his bail. This raises a few pertinent questions. How come it has taken over three years for this case to come to trial? Why was the bail so low? Why was he released in November 2023? Why was he allowed to remain free while on trial? What does all this say anything about the treatment of Kenyan women and Kenyan athletes, or is it just normal for that to happen in Kenya? Biwott’s response is both telling and worrying.
“It is not only surprising that maybe it has taken almost three years for him to be brought on trial,” he said. “The only surprising issue, maybe that even surprised the group that calls themselves Tirop’s Angels, is the amount that was paid as bail. The money paid is very small and also, the time that the murderer was remanded was very short, so he was being rushed out of the cells very fast, having paid so little.”
Biwott is not alone in his outrage, but expresses a sentiment in urgent need of being heard all over the world.
“It dismayed everybody,” he said, “and I think that the majority of us felt that it was not fair and anyway, when it comes to Kenya, it’s not only women. We find that the codes of justice here are not so fair. We have people who have murdered others and have been left to move Scot free without any tangible punishment that you’d think they deserve, so the victims here at times don’t get the justice that they deserve.”
As if to emphasise Biwott’s point, Rotich failed to appear in court as required in February and last week as well. The authorities in Kenya have asked the police to ensure that Rotich is produced in court on April 8th.
Given the fact that he was arrested initially while trying to free the country back in 2021, why was he released on bail, and why wasn’t it revoked during his trial?
