Agnes Tirop was world champion in cross-country running and took part in the Olympic Games. In September 2021, the Kenyan set a new world record over 10 kilometers. A month later, her then-husband Emmanuel Rotich stabbed her multiple times in the neck and stomach with a knife. She was only 25 years old.
Agnes Tirop died because she was a woman. Above all, she died because she was a successful runner. She is one of four professional runners who have competed in the past three years Kenya were killed by their partner or ex-partner. The other victims are Rebecca Cheptegei, Damaris Mutua and Edith Muthoni.
The women lived dangerously because they were fast. The more success they have, the more dangerously they live, says Gerry Kweya, a Kenyan sports scientist and former member of his country’s Committee for Gender Equality in Sports. He recognizes a systematic problem: “Men see women as their chance for a better life and want to enrich themselves economically from them.” Because Kenya is a poor country. More than a third of people live below the poverty line.
Tirop, Cheptegei, Mutua and Muthoni are not the only victims. The number of unreported cases is higher, says Kweya. “These four cases are being talked about because the runners were internationally known.” But there are even more femicides of female athletes, which are not made public. The number of attacks in which women survive is particularly high. In October 2020, the Committee for Gender Equality in Sport surveyed 486 female athletes about their experiences with abuse: More than 60 percent of Kenyan female athletes had already experienced violence, and 15 percent had been sexually abused. The perpetrators are almost always husbands or trainers. And very few report the incidents out of fear of the men.
Agnes Tirop was still at school when she met Emmanuel Rotich. Rotich came from a poor family and, like Tirop, grew up in Iten, the running capital of Kenya. Back then, Tirop was already faster than most people her age and won her first junior competitions. Rotich discovered her talent and offered to train her. He didn’t run himself and he didn’t have a trainer’s license either. She agreed – and they married that same year, that was 2016.
It’s all part of a strategy, says Joan Chelimo. The Kenyan-Romanian long-distance runner was a friend of Agnes Tirop. “Men like Rotich specifically look for young female athletes and offer themselves to them as trainers. It’s not uncommon for a romantic relationship to develop,” she says. The men would give the female athletes their first shoes, write them training and meal plans, run with them, refer them to agents abroad and get sponsors. The men are there for their wives – and at the same time make them dependent on themselves. In addition, they often isolated the women from their families in order to be able to manipulate them better. The athletes are often very young, often teenagers, and are therefore easy victims.
“Emmanuel Rotich knew that Agnes Tirop was a good runner and that was probably one of the main reasons for his interest in her. He saw her as a way out for himself,” says journalist Simon Marks in one Bloomberg-Documentation about the death of Agnes Tirop. He had court files from Rotich’s trial, witness statements and interrogation protocols.
Shortly after Tirop and Rotich met, Tirop dropped out of school. Rotich persuaded her to do this, her father says in the documentary. The plan was successful. Agnes Tirop earned a lot of money through victory bonuses and sponsorship contracts. Rotich benefited from this. Because in such relationships the men manage the money and the women are usually financially dependent on them, even if they earn the money, says Chelimo.
Tirop’s international breakthrough followed in 2020, she took part in competitions in Europe and Asia and climbed up the world rankings. From then on, things went from bad to worse in the relationship with Rotich, says Simon Marks. Rotich beat Tirop regularly. He once injured her leg so badly that she could no longer walk and had to seek treatment abroad.
“Through her travels and international competitions, she had become more self-confident and emancipated herself. Rotich couldn’t stand that,” says Chelimo. Tirop realized that she had to work hard for her money and wanted to be financially independent. She complained about her husband more and more often. “This guy is wasting my money,” her brother Martin quoted her as saying Bloomberg-Documentation. When she returned from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, she broke up with Rotich and moved to a runners’ camp in Iten.
Shortly before her death, she went to Rotich to talk to him about their relationship. On the day of her death, Anges Tirop’s sister Eve heard an argument coming from their house, according to police. The next morning Tirop was found dead. Rotich couldn’t live with the fact that his wife made her own decisions, left him and wanted to be financially independent from him, says Chelimo. That’s why he killed her.
Agnes Tirop was world champion in cross-country running and took part in the Olympic Games. In September 2021, the Kenyan set a new world record over 10 kilometers. A month later, her then-husband Emmanuel Rotich stabbed her multiple times in the neck and stomach with a knife. She was only 25 years old.
Agnes Tirop died because she was a woman. Above all, she died because she was a successful runner. She is one of four professional runners who have competed in the past three years Kenya were killed by their partner or ex-partner. The other victims are Rebecca Cheptegei, Damaris Mutua and Edith Muthoni.
