Cheptegei’s mother, Agnes – who spoke to reporters outside the hospital on Thursday – described her as “a good child.”
Her father, Joseph, blamed the Kenyan government and police for failing to prevent her death.
“I blame her death on negligence by the government because the authorities should have taken it seriously when we first reported that this man [Ndiema] had become problematic and he was fighting her. We reported to the police, to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations but they didn’t take any action to save her life,” he told journalists.
CNN has contacted the Kenyan police and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations for comment.
Uganda’s minister of state for sports, Peter Ogwang, described Cheptegei’s death as “tragic” in a post on X Thursday, adding that “Kenyan authorities are investigating the circumstances under which she died and a more detailed report and program will be provided in due course.”
Kenya’s sports minister Kipchumba Murkomen said in a statement that Cheptegei’s death was “not only a loss to Uganda and the athletics community, but to the entire region.”
Cheptegei is the third elite female athlete to be killed in Kenya in the last three years.
In 2021, 25-year-old Kenyan Olympic runner Agnes Tirop was found dead in her Iten home in the country’s Elgeyo-Marakwet County with stab wounds in her neck. Her husband, Ibrahim Rotich, was charged with murder after Kenyan prosecutors accused him of killing her.
Months later, another Kenyan athlete Damaris Mutua, 28, was found strangled in a home with a pillow over her face. Mutua had just placed third at a half marathon in Angola earlier that month. Authorities said her boyfriend was the main suspect.
Sports minister Murkomen said the latest tragedy involving Cheptegei “is a stark reminder that we must do more to combat gender-based violence in our society, which in recent years has reared its ugly head in elite sporting circles.”
Amnesty International Kenya also said that Cheptegei’s death “highlights the urgent need to address femicide” in the country.
CNN’s Niamh Kennedy, Larry Madowo and Caitlin Danaher contributed to this report.