The murder of Ugandan Olympian and long-distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei has shocked her friends and family and sent the East African athletics community into disarray.

For fellow athlete James Kirwa, who trained with Cheptegei on occasion, it was her generosity that defined her.

Speaking to the BBC hours after she died from injuries sustained when she was set on fire, he said he had seen the 33-year-old woman as a skilled athlete who was friendly to her teammates while running.

“She was a very kind person and was always very helpful and helped us all, even financially. She brought me training shoes when she came back from the Olympics (in Paris),” he said.

The mother of two was in the French capital to take part in the marathon and finished 44th in a time of two hours, 32 minutes and 14 seconds.

Compared to other runners in the region, she achieved modest success.

But you don’t have to win medals to make money. With the money she earned from competing, she was still able to support her family.

At the age of 19, she first represented Uganda in an under-20 competition at the 2010 World Cross Country Championships.

Over time she moved on to longer road races, where she achieved success later in her career.

Her most notable victory came in the uphill and downhill mountain race at the 2022 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

She made her marathon debut in 2021 and ran a personal best of 2 hours, 22 minutes and 47 seconds the following year, making her the second-fastest Ugandan woman of all time.

For much of her running career she served in the Ugandan Army, where she reached the rank of Corporal.

Athletes in East Africa often join their country’s military for the financial support it provides, and it allows them to train on the track rather than serving in the field.

Not much is known about the circumstances under which Cheptegei joined the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, but she was a member of the athletics club and represented her country on the track at the 2011 World Military Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Kirwa said that because of her 14 years of international competition, he looked up to her like an older sister; someone he looked to for support.

“When I started, I almost wanted to give up because it was so hard, but she told me to keep going,” he said.

Cheptegei died early Thursday morning from severe burns after her ex-boyfriend doused her with petrol and set her alight outside her home in northwestern Kenya on Sunday.

The region borders her native Uganda and is close to Kenya’s best athletic training centres, which is why she lived there.

The athlete’s mother, Agnes Cheptegei, was visibly distraught and was only able to pay brief tribute to her daughter outside the Kenyan hospital where she was being treated, describing her as kind-hearted.

Her sister Violet burst into tears as she said, “I’m in pain, but we’ll leave it up to God.”

Cheptegei had just returned from church when she was attacked. Her two young daughters witnessed the incident and tried to intervene.

Ugandan athlete Immaculate Chemutai, who visited Cheptegai in hospital along with others like Kirwa, said she hoped her friend would survive as she had recovered on Wednesday evening “and her breathing was somehow back to normal”.

“I got the phone call in the morning and the doctor told us we’d lost her. It’s really sad. Rebecca, she’s been so good to us. She’s so sweet… a good person,” she told the BBC.

“She loves her family very much, especially the girls.

“And sometimes she supports us, if we need a loan or something, we can apply for it and she can give it.”

Her father Joseph Cheptegei echoed this when he said, “We have lost our breadwinner.”

He added that he was now concerned about the two girls’ education as their mother could no longer support them.

The impact of her death is not only felt by her immediate family and friends.

For some, it fits into a broader pattern of violence against women in the region, where top athletes are not protected by their status.

“I can say that we are still in shock and we are in pain, especially as athletes, and this is happening in Kenya, this is (another) time that an athlete is being attacked… so we are not happy,” said Kenyan runner Milcah Chemos Cheywa.

In 2021, world record holder Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death and six months later Damaris Mutua was strangled. Their partners were named as prime suspects in both cases by authorities.

“We call on the public, sports organisations and the government to unite and take meaningful steps to protect women and girls so that more lives are not lost,” said Tirop’s Angels, a group formed after Tirop’s killing.

Sebastian Coe, the president of the world athletics governing body, said his organisation would work with groups on the ground to see how female athletes could be better protected “from abuse of all kinds”.

He mourned an athlete who he said “still had a lot to offer.”

For Kirwa, Cheptegei’s death is a great personal loss. He said he had withdrawn from Sunday’s Nairobi City Marathon because he was so upset and “mentally unwell”.