On Wednesday, October 13th, 2021, Olympic runner Anges Tirop was found dead. The 25-year-old long distance runner was found with stab wounds in her abdomen in her home in Iten, Kenya. Tirop competed for Kenya in the past 2021 Tokyo Olympics and finished fourth in the 5000m. Along with the Olympics, she also competed in the 2017 and 2019 World Championships and won the bronze medal in the 10,000 meter in 2019. She made history last month when she took an amazing 28 seconds off the long standing, women-only record for the ten kilometer race in Germany at the Adizero Road to Records event. Tirop finished with a time of 30:01, beating the previous record of 30:29 which was set by Moroccan Asmae Leghzaoui in 2002. In 2015, at the age of nineteen years old, she became the second youngest gold medalist in the women’s race after Zola Budd at the World Cross Country Championships which launched her running career. Her last race was a second place finish in the ten kilometer in Geneva on October 3rd with a time of 30:20. 

  On Thursday, October 14th, her husband, Ibrahim Kipkemoi Rotich, was arrested in the city of Mombasa. The police had been hunting for him after his family reported that he called crying and asking God’s forgiveness for something he had done. This loss is devastating to many members of the track and field community and the people of Kenya. Anges Tirop was an inspirational woman, may her legacy live on, and may she rest in peace.