World Athletics has ‘responsibility’ to combat gender-based violence – Lord Coe
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World Athletics president Lord Coe says his organisation is committed to combatting gender-based violence following a year marked by the tragic death of Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei. Cheptegei’s former partner was accused of setting the Ugandan athlete on fire in a petrol attack in Kenya and the 33-year-old, who had just returned from the Paris 2024 Games, later died of her extensive injuries.
The World Athletics council – working alongside the Athletes’ Commission and Gender Leadership Taskforce – earlier this month committed to taking action, identifying campaigning against gender-based violence as a priority. While Lord Coe freely admits there are limitations to what a sporting federation is best-placed or able to do, he insisted: “I’m just not walking away from the responsibility that we have.
“This is not unique to Africa. Sadly, the high-profile case that grabbed everybody’s attention was on that continent, so what I’m really trying to understand is the nature and scale of the challenge and how we can sensibly bring resources to the table.
“I want to bring the right people to the table and if World Athletics can help do that, that’s great.”. In 2022, runner Damaris Muthee Mutua became the second female athlete in the space of a year to be killed in the Kenyan training town of Iten after Olympian and world 10,000 metres bronze medallist Agnes Tirop was found stabbed to death.
