Kenya’s female athletes have continued to prove their dominance at the Diamond League final in Brussels, Belgium, as they have scooped most of the titles to maintain their good record at major championships.

Out of the nine track events this far competed for in Brussels, Kenyan women athletes have picked four of them with some stunning performances recorded along the way.

Three of the four titles were won on the second day of the competition after world champion Mary Moraa had regained her 800m crown in superb fashion on Friday.

The Commonwealth champion ran a very tactical race to win the 800m Diamond Trophy in a season’s best 1:56.56, having saved the best for last, as she stormed to victory in the final 200m.

Moraa last won the trophy in 2022 before she was defeated by American Athing Mu last year but she made amends with her victory ahead of Britain’s Georgia Bell who clocked 1:57.50 and Jamaica’s Natoya Goule-Toppin, who completed the podium in 1:58.94.

On Saturday, 20-year-old Faith Cherotich stunned Olympics and world champion Winfred Yavi to claim the 3,000m steeplechase title.

With Yavi and former Olympics champion Peruth Chemutai of Uganda in the race, few gave Cherotich a chance at victory but she proved everyone wrong.

The world and Olympics bronze medallist timed her jumps at the water barriers to perfection while keeping Yavi in check, and at the final hurdle, she had already managed a good gap which she held on to win her first-ever Diamond League title.

Faith Kipyegon was the next to prove her mettle in the 1,500m and the three-time Olympics champion smashed the meeting record to clock 3:54.75 for her fifth Diamond League title.

Double Olympics champion Beatrice Chebet put the icing on the cake for the Kenyan women when she commanded the 5,000m race from start to finish.

Chebet left her rivals by a big gap as she lowered Almas Ayana’s meeting record by setting a new mark of 14:09.82 for her second Diamond League title.

Chebet had also won her first trophy in 2022 before missing out last year, but made amends in emphatic style. To show how dominant she was, second-placed Medina Eisa of Ethiopia came home in 14:21.89 to add to her world record in 10,000m, World Cross-Country title, two Olympics gold medals and now the Diamond League title in 2024.

There were uncontrollable tears and wailing as thousands of mourners turned out in eastern Uganda for the funeral of Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set ablaze by her former boyfriend and later died.

At the solemn burial ceremony conducted on Saturday, Cheptegei was buried with full military honours with representatives the government and different arms of the country’s military formations in attendance.

Cheptegei who had participated in the road race at the Paris Olympic Games in July, was attacked by her ex-partner,
Dickson Ndiema, who doused her with petrol and set her ablaze.

She was to die four days later after the fire had consumed over 75 percent of her body. Ndiema himself who also suffered burns in the fire, died a few days later.

Local media reported that Ndiema allegedly attacked Cheptegei as she returned from church with her two daughters and younger sister in the village of Kinyoro, following a disagreement over a piece of land that belonged to her.

Cheptegei’s sporting successes include winning the 2021 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand, and a year later earning first place in the Padova Marathon in Italy and setting a national record for the marathon.

Cheptegei’s tragic death has sparked anger over the high levels of violence against women in Kenya, particularly in the athletics community, with the marathoner becoming the third elite runner to allegedly die at the hands of a romantic partner since 2021.

Her father Joseph Cheptegei told journalists that his daughter had approached police at least three times to file complaints against Ndiema, most recently on August 30, two days before the deadly attack.