Charles Burns loves a doomed romance. This has been true throughout his career as a graphic novelist, and it remains so in his remarkable new book, “Final Cut.”

Burns tells this latest story using a visual style that he has honed over decades of comics, designs and album covers. He has frequently found ways to connect old pop culture and fine art, but here, he incorporates and criticizes his own work, too.

And now, 20 Final Thoughts from college football’s Week 12, where no one won bigger than Indiana’s Curt Cignetti. He got a $64 million contract on his week off.

1. Preseason No. 1 Georgia faced the prospect of missing the College Football Playoff entirely if it suffered its third loss of the season on Saturday against Tennessee. And it looked like that was going to happen when the Bulldogs fell behind 10-0 on their home field. But then, much-maligned quarterback Carson Beck rediscovered his mojo just in time.

Behind Beck’s best game of the season (25 of 40 for 347 yards and two touchdowns, no interceptions) and a masterful performance by his offensive line, No. 12 Georgia (8-2, 6-2 SEC) beat No. 7 Tennessee (8-2, 5-2) for the eighth straight season, 31-17. In doing so, Georgia both saved its season and turned the SEC standings into a marvelous, muddy mess.

2. Texas and Texas A&M are both 5-1 and tied for first in the league. They play each other on Nov. 30 in College Station. So that part should resolve itself. After that, there are four teams — Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Ole Miss — with two conference losses. Kalen DeBoer’s Tide, left for dead a few weeks ago, have the inside track to Atlanta due to their opponents’ cumulative conference record.

But, of course, all of these teams are still vying for CFP at-large berths, which brings us back to the Vols.

3. We hereby anoint Tennessee as the first official bubble team of the 12-team era. Our best guess is the Vols, No. 7 in last week’s committee rankings, will fall to the “first one out” slot that Georgia had occupied. Tennessee has a win against Alabama, but it suffered a meh loss at Arkansas, which is 5-5. Ole Miss has a flat-out bad loss at home against 4-6 Kentucky, but it has been dominant in most of its wins, including two against ranked opponents Georgia and No. 21 South Carolina.

Both should cheer for Ohio State to hammer No. 5 Indiana next week. The currently undefeated Hoosiers would have one fewer loss but also zero Top 25 wins. You can already hear the lobbying now between the Big Ten and SEC commissioners about that last at-large berth.

4. No. 1 Oregon (11-0, 8-0 Big Ten) has not had a week off since Sept. 21, and on Saturday, the Ducks made their third trip to the Eastern or Central time zone in their past five games. So I found it unsurprising that Oregon sputtered on offense for much of the night against Wisconsin at sold-out Camp Randall Stadium and trailed 13-6 when “Jump Around” came on at the start of the fourth quarter. We’ve seen far bigger underdogs than the Badgers (+13.5) pull off upsets this season.

But the Ducks did what great teams do, driving 81 yards for the tying score and holding Wisconsin without a first down for the entire fourth quarter to win 16-13. Running back Jordan James (25 carries, 121 yards, one TD) wore down the Badgers (5-5, 3-4), and defensive end Matayo Uiagalelei was everywhere, pulling down a game-sealing interception off a deflection. In escaping Madison unscathed, Oregon, which has only one game remaining, against 6-5 Washington, may have helped its conference stave off a possible four-way tie for first.

5. The Big 12 race took quite a turn Saturday. Sixth-ranked BYU (9-1, 6-1 Big 12) had been living dangerously for some time, and its luck ran out in a 17-13 home loss to Kansas (4-6, 3-4) — specifically when Jayhawks quarterback Jalon Daniels’ pooch punt bounced off BYU player Evan Johnson and into the hands of Kansas’ Quentin Skinner. That set up the go-ahead score early in the fourth quarter, and the Cougars never got on the board again. It was a huge win for Lance Leipold’s Jayhawks, who started the season 1-5 but have won three of four, including back-to-back Top 25 wins (Iowa State and BYU).

BYU still has a Playoff bid within reach, as it is tied for first in the Big 12 with Colorado (8-2, 6-1) and will head to Arlington if it wins out. But first, the Cougars have to make it past one of the country’s hottest teams next week.

6. What a job Kenny Dillingham has done in his second season at Arizona State. The Sun Devils (8-2, 5-2 Big 12) went to No. 16 Kansas State (7-3, 4-3), jumped out to a 24-0 lead and held on to win 24-14, moving into third place in the 16-team conference. Redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt (21 of 34 for 275 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions) and third-year receiver Jordyn Tyson (12 catches, 176 yards, two TDs) had big days, while the Sun Devils defense forced three turnovers and made a fourth-and-1 stop.

Arizona State hosts BYU next week with a chance to take control of its Big 12 title hopes. It’s hard to believe this is the same program that was still digging out from under Herm Edwards’ mismanagement and NCAA recruiting sanctions this time last year.

7. Early in the season, it was hard to imagine Colorado star Travis Hunter winning the Heisman Trophy as a non-quarterback on a likely non-CFP team. But here we are, with the 17th-ranked Buffs on a four-game winning streak, and it feels like Hunter may run away with the thing.

In Saturday’s 49-24 win over Utah (4-6, 1-6), the two-way star did something no NFL or FBS player had achieved in almost exactly 24 years: post 50 receiving yards (five catches for 55), score a rushing touchdown (on a reverse where he eluded seven Utes tacklers) and intercept a pass (which he returned for 21 yards, then struck the Heisman pose). The last player to pull off that trifecta: Champ Bailey on Dec. 24, 2000 — in the NFL.

TRAVIS HUNTER IS JUST A CHEAT CODE 😱@CUBuffsFootball pic.twitter.com/SUCHVonSOq

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 16, 2024

8. But, of course, no Heisman voter should make up his or her mind until the final games are played. No. 13 Boise State (9-1, 6-0 Mountain West) fell behind 14-0 early at San Jose State (6-4, 3-3) but eventually went up 28-21 on a 36-yard Ashton Jeanty touchdown run, one of his three on the night. Boise Satte pulled away for a 42-21 win behind Jeanty’s 32 carries for 159 yards and three scores. He has gained at least 125 yards in all 10 games and is at 1,893 yards and 26 touchdowns on the season.

With the win, Boise State clinched a berth in the Dec. 6 Mountain West Championship Game, where it will face either Colorado State (7-3, 5-0) or UNLV (8-2, 4-1). And with BYU losing, the once far-fetched scenario in which the Broncos finish ahead of the Big 12 champ and get a first-round bye is now on the table.

As for the Heisman, Jeanty’s biggest hurdle isn’t his opponents. It’s that his team was playing San Jose State on CBS Sports Network, not Utah on Fox’s “Big Noon Saturday.”

9. Quinn Ewers may have the Dr. Pepper commercials and Arch Manning the “great hair and famous relatives,” but Texas is two wins from the SEC Championship Game because of Jahdae Barron and the nation’s top-ranked defense. The No. 3 Longhorns (9-1, 5-1 SEC) notched six sacks and allowed just 231 total yards in a 20-10 win at Arkansas (5-5, 3-4). Texas’ offense has been inconsistent during the back half of the season, but when the Razorbacks cut their deficit to 13-10 early in the fourth quarter, Ewers (20 of 32, 176 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions) hit Isaiah Bond on a 20-yard pass to begin a 75-yard touchdown drive.

The Longhorns get Kentucky (4-6, 1-6) at home next week before a little game in College Station.

10. South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers has been outstanding the past several weeks. After Missouri took the lead on a 37-yard Luther Burden III touchdown catch with 1:15 left, Sellers led his team right back down the field, culminating in a 15-yard catch-and-run score by Rocket Sanders. The No. 21 Gamecocks (7-3, 5-3 SEC) prevailed 34-30 over No. 23 Mizzou (7-3, 3-3) for their fourth straight win. Shane Beamer’s team is known for its top-10 defense, but the offense has kicked into gear since a 44-20 win over Texas A&M two weeks ago. It’s too late for the conference race, but South Carolina still has a chance at its first nine-win regular season since 2013.

11. Amid the season-long fixation on Billy Napier’s job security, folks may have missed that Florida has gotten better. The breakthrough finally arrived Saturday when the Gators (5-5, 3-4 SEC) knocked off No. 22 LSU 27-16. Florida welcomed back from injury freshman quarterback DJ Lagway, who threw a 23-yard touchdown, but the story was its defense, which sacked Garrett Nussmeier seven times and held Brian Kelly’s Tigers (6-4, 3-3) to 4.2 yards per play. Napier, who athletic director Scott Stricklin already said will be back next season, may go from hot seat to bowl trip, as Florida still faces 1-9 rival Florida State in its regular-season finale.

Meanwhile, LSU has lost four games in a season for the fourth time in five years. Joe Burrow isn’t walking through that door.

12. Virginia muffed the opening kickoff against No. 8 Notre Dame, and it only went south from there, as the Irish (9-1) feasted on five turnovers to cruise to a 35-14 win over the visiting Cavaliers (5-5, 3-3 ACC). It feels like America’s ultimate helmet school has been flying under the radar for two months, but it’s hard to argue with the results. Notre Dame has won eight in a row, with seven of those coming by at least three scores.

And a lot of people will be watching the Irish during the next two weeks. They meet undefeated Army in prime time next Saturday, and a win would set up their own CFP play-in game against 5-5 USC.

13. Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik saved the Tigers’ season Saturday. Three plays after the No. 20 Tigers (8-2, 7-1 ACC) fell behind Pittsburgh (7-3, 3-3) with 1:36 left, Klubnik broke a 50-yard touchdown run to put Clemson back up 24-20. The Tigers’ defense, which had eight sacks, closed out the win from there. Dabo Swinney’s team finished ACC play at 7-1 and still has a shot at the conference title game if No. 9 Miami (9-1, 5-1) loses one of its last two games or, less likely, SMU (9-1, 6-0) falls twice. (Clemson would be the odd team out in a three-way tiebreaker.)

No one would confuse this Clemson team with the Deshaun Watson/Trevor Lawrence teams that reached six consecutive CFPs from 2015 to 2020, but these Tigers could still earn an automatic berth and a top-four seed.

14. If you missed it, Boston College coach Bill O’Brien’s decision during week to pivot from two-year starting quarterback Thomas Castellanos to Grayson James against No. 14 SMU prompted Castellanos to leave the team entirely. James kept the Eagles (5-5, 2-4 ACC) in the game throughout but could not keep up with Kevin Jennings, Brashard Smith and the Mustangs, who kept their perfect ACC record intact with a 38-28 win. And it sure seems like SMU is going to have to get that automatic berth to make the CFP. The committee last week had the Mustangs ranked the lowest of any one-loss Power 4 team, behind three two-loss teams. It would be interesting to see where they’d be if they wore Clemson or Florida State helmets. Or Miami’s, given the Hurricanes are five spots above SMU.

15. While Boise State has hogged the Group of 5 spotlight most of the season, No. 25 Tulane is playing as well as anyone in those conferences. The Green Wave (9-2, 7-0 AAC) clinched a berth in their third straight AAC Championship Game with a 35-0 rout of Navy (7-3, 5-2), the sixth double-digit win of Tulane’s seven-game winning streak. Tulane will meet No. 24 Army (9-0, 7-0), which clinched its berth on an off week thanks to Navy losing, on Dec. 6 at one or the other’s stadium.

Tulane coach Jon Sumrall knows what he’s doing; this will be his third straight conference title game after winning back-to-back Sun Belt titles at Troy.

16. USC coach Lincoln Riley changed quarterbacks during the week and finally won a close game. UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava (23 of 35 for 259 yards, three touchdowns, one interception) was decent, and running back Woody Marks (19 carries for 146 yards) ran hard for the Trojans (5-5, 3-5 Big Ten) in their 28-20 win over Nebraska (5-5, 2-5). The Huskers, still trying to reach their first bowl game since 2016, have lost four straight and have dropped their last nine games — dating to 2019 — when a win would have made them bowl-eligible. It’s preposterous! They have two chances left this season, against Wisconsin (5-5, 3-4) and at Iowa (6-4, 4-3).

17. Nearly all the coaches who entered the season on the hot seat have worked their way off of it. Baylor (6-4, 4-3 Big 12) got bowl-eligible with a 49-35 win at West Virginia (5-5, 4-3), after which the school let reporters know that coach Dave Aranda will be back for a fifth season. The Bears have bounced back from last year’s 3-9 debacle thanks to several young standouts, most notably freshman running back Bryson Washington, who had 18 carries for 123 yards and three touchdowns and caught five passes for 59 yards and another TD against the Mountaineers.

18. One coach who might be in actual danger? Purdue’s Ryan Walters. While it’s only his second season, the Boilermakers (1-9, 0-7 Big Ten) are just awful. Their 49-10 home loss to No. 4 Penn State (9-1, 6-1) marked their fifth defeat of at least 35 points, with such memorable scores as 66-7 (Notre Dame), 52-6 (Wisconsin) and 45-0 (Ohio State). Somehow Purdue drew all four of the Big Ten’s current top-10 teams, plus a top-10 Notre Dame team. But it even lost by 17 to an Oregon State team that is 4-6. And No. 5 Indiana still awaits.

GO DEEPER

Purdue is having a banner year for bad football. But fans can’t stay away

19. Stanford has not had many highlights in coach Troy Taylor’s two seasons, but on Saturday, the Cardinal (3-7, 2-5 ACC) knocked off No. 19 Louisville (6-4, 4-3) 38-35 in miraculous fashion. Louisville, facing a fourth-and-10 with 10 seconds left and the score tied, opted to try a Hail Mary. Nope. Stanford took over possession at its own 44 with four seconds left, at which point Louisville got flagged 15 yards for an unsportsmanlike penalty, then jumped offside, setting up Emmet Kenney to hit a game-winning 52-yard field goal.

That could not have been a fun flight home for Louisville.

20. Finally, when a Saturday begins, you never know where the feel-good story of the day might occur. This week, it was Albuquerque, N.M. The hometown Lobos (5-6), trying to avoid an eighth straight losing season, drove 75 yards entirely on the ground to score a go-ahead touchdown with 21 seconds left and knock off No. 18 Washington State (8-2) 38-35. It was a huge win for former BYU and Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall, who took over at New Mexico this season. His team can get bowl-eligible with a win at 4-7 Hawaii in two weeks.

It was New Mexico’s first Top 25 win since 2003 when the Lobos knocked off a Utah team coached by one Urban Meyer.

(Photo: Peter Aiken / Getty Images)

Rebecca Cheptegei loved chickens. She reared them and collected their eggs each morning. Her family would gently joke she loved them too much.

“She was always laughing,” says her mother, Agnes. “You always knew when she was home.”

Cheptegei had a chicken coop wherever she lived. Earlier this year, she built a house in the Kenyan village of Kinyoro, funded by her recent success — she won the World Mountain Running Championships in 2022, and finished second in last year’s Florence Marathon.

That championship feeling for Rebecca Cheptegei 🇺🇬🏆✨

She’s crowned queen of the Classic Up & Down at the #WMTRC in #AmazingThailand 👑

Silver 🥈 for Annet Chemengich Chelangat 🇺🇬, and bronze 🥉 for Allie McLaughlin 🇺🇸

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On the afternoon of September 1, while Cheptegei was at church, her estranged partner Dickson Ndiema Marangach lowered himself inside the coop, with its solid wooden walls. When she returned, she went outside to check on her flock, given the light drizzle.

As Cheptegei approached, Marangach burst out the coop and threw petrol in her eyes. While she stumbled, he used the jerry can to soak the rest of her body — and set her alight.

Her 17-year-old sister Dorcas ran out to help, clawing at Cheptegei’s black jacket, her finest church wear, but fled after being threatened by Marangach’s machete.

“I can’t forget it,” says Dorcas. “I keep dreaming of her calling for help.” Watching on inside were Cheptegei’s daughters from a previous marriage, 12-year-old Joy and Charity, nine.

Cheptegei ran to the front lawn, but with Marangach trailing behind, no neighbours came to help. As she collapsed onto the grass, Marangach walked over, and emptied the rest of the petrol onto her. He seriously burnt himself in the process.

By the time help came, the only parts of Cheptegei which had not been covered with either second or third-degree burns were her forearms and shins.

“Mama, why was there no one there to save me?” she wept to her pastor, Caroline Atieno, in hospital that evening.

For the first 24 hours, Cheptegei was able to speak and describe the attack. Before being transferred to a larger hospital in the Kenyan city of Eldoret, she raised hopes of survival by pulling herself into a wheelchair. The next day, Atieno kept vigil at the nearby Mount Bethel, where the pair had prayed before the Olympics.

Cheptegei worsened over the coming days. Her tongue swelled, blocking her airways. One by one, her organs began to shut down.

“I went to see her in intensive care,” says Kenyan athlete Violah Lagat. “And I made a bad decision visiting that day, because it has never left me. I’ve been having nightmares about how she looked. She went through all the struggles of life and made it. She was an Olympian. And it was taken from her.”

Running memorabilia on the walls of Cheptegei’s family home (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

While she could still speak, Cheptegei repeated two things in Swahili.

“Why couldn’t Dickson have seen one good thing in me, so he wouldn’t have done this?”

“Who will look after my children?”

She died four days after being attacked, aged 33.

The hospital announced that Marangach had died of his own burns on September 10.

(Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

On November 3, Kenyan athletes finished 1-2-3 in the New York City Marathon. The previous month, in Chicago, Ruth Chepngetich became the first woman to run under two hours and 10 minutes, obliterating the world record by nearly two minutes.

The majority of Kenyan runners train in the town of Iten, near Eldoret. It lies above the Great Rift Valley on an escarpment a mile and a half high, the thin air and web of trails producing a regular stream of Olympic medallists. In Kenya, it has been named “the home of champions”. In recent years, it has become known for something else.

Cheptegei’s family have hung a banner on their living room wall. It reads “Fighting for Victims of Femicide” and lists four names.

Rebecca Cheptegei. Though she was born in and competed for Uganda, she had lived in Kenya since the age of two.

Cheptegei leads the women’s marathon at the 2023 World Athletics Championship in Budapest, Hungary (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

Damaris Muthee Mutua — strangled in Iten in April 2022. Born in Kenya, she represented Bahrain internationally. The police named her boyfriend Eskinder Folie as the chief suspect but he fled across the border to his native Ethiopia and attempts to capture him have been unsuccessful.

Edith Muthoni — murdered in October 2021. The 27-year-old sprinter also worked as a wildlife protection officer. Her husband was charged in relation to her death in 2022 and the case is ongoing.

Agnes Tirop — stabbed to death in the same week as Muthoni, a month after breaking the 10,000m world record in Germany. Her husband and coach, Ibrahim Rotich, confessed to beating her in a heated argument and then pleaded not guilty to her murder. This case is also ongoing.

“She was a pure talent,” says Janeth Jepkosgei, a former 800m world champion and Olympic silver medallist, of Tirop. “She could have been an Olympic champion. She could have done great things in the marathon.”

Though the legal process is at a different stage in all four cases, there is an apparent pattern: each woman athlete was killed after a financial dispute involving their partner. Speaking to athletes around Iten, everyone worries that they will not be the last.

Former world champion Janeth Jepkosgei (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Jepkosgei is now one of Kenya’s best coaches, working predominantly with junior athletes, and witnesses the issues daily.

“We don’t want to bury more ladies, but the same things keep happening,” she says. “It’s no longer safe for any athlete, actually, especially when they’re starting a relationship. We feel scared as women.”

She is alluding to a system of control that is well-known throughout Kenyan running.

“There are these guys who go hunting for these girls who are talented, and then they pretend to be coaches,” explains Lagat, whose brother, Bernard, won two world championship gold medals competing for the USA.

Kenyan 1500m runner Violah Lagat (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

“Ninety per cent of the time, us athletes come from very vulnerable backgrounds. Our parents don’t have enough money or enough food, they aren’t able to provide sanitary towels for the girls. Those men will initially provide that.”

Athletics in Kenya is a route out of poverty. The New York City Marathon prize money is $100,000, fifteen times a Kenyan’s average annual salary, but even performing well in local races can provide a comfortable lifestyle. Around 30 female runners earn more than $100,000 each year, in a nation where one-third of the population live below the poverty line. With the majority of athletes from poorer, rural backgrounds, they invariably will have never handled such large sums of money.

“In many cases, these men are gradually grooming or manipulating someone to put all their trust in them,” adds Lagat. “Then the control takes place — how they’re training, who they’re seeing, what they do with their earnings.”

“I call them vultures,” says Wesley Korir, winner of the 2012 Boston Marathon, and later a politician. “They look at them (women athletes) as an investment. The relationship is not out of love, these girls feel stuck, they’re trying to survive. For me, I feel like it’s slavery.”

When The Athletic visited Iten, many athletes — some speaking anonymously owing to fear of repercussions — reported further examples of gender-based violence, including domestic abuse, sexual assault, abduction, and feeling pressure to take performance-enhancing drugs. The response of authorities has also been questioned.

An advertisment for Tirop’s Angels, near Agnes Tirop’s home (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Lagat has trained in Iten for most of her adult life, and had grown close to Tirop, six years her junior. After her friend’s death, she resolved to bring change.

“The violence has gone from our grandmothers to our mothers,” she explains. “Agnes was younger than me. If we didn’t take a step, it’ll go all the way to our grandchildren as well.”

She co-founded Tirop’s Angels alongside fellow athlete Joan Chelimo, a domestic abuse charity run by current athletes which provides counselling and safe havens, as well as advice for athletes who suspect they are being exploited.

According to the charity, three-quarters of the women they support have contemplated suicide because of their situation.

Kenyan runners typically come from rural communities in the Great Rift Valley (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

On the day we meet, Lagat needs to leave early, rushed out to an emergency call of an athlete in distress. In recent months, the charity experienced a man trying to climb over an electric fence to reach one of the athletes they were harbouring. It was not out of the ordinary.

To get to Cheptegei’s family home, you take the highway from Eldoret, in Kenya’s far west, towards the gateway town of Kitale. It is near the Ugandan border, over which her parents fled ethnic violence in the early 1990s. From Kitale, it is a smaller road to the tiny village of Endebess, before a three-mile climb up a packed dirt trail into the shadows of Mount Elgon.

These roads are good for training — soft for the knees, undulating for the legs and high for the lungs. Cheptegei’s brother Jacob — an 18-year-old with a 5,000m personal best of 14 minutes flat, faster than this year’s world-leading junior time — leads the way.

Jacob Cheptegei on the family’s two acres of land (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Joy and Charity live with the family now, joining Cheptegei’s parents and siblings across four adobe huts and two acres of land, on which they grow cabbages, plantain, and yams.

“Once we were 13, but now we are 12,” says Cheptegei’s father, Joseph. “She (Rebecca) dreamed of buying us another two acres, of building a permanent home. But that has disappeared.”

Cheptegei was spotted as a talented runner at seven. She opted to represent Uganda after missing out on a Kenya junior camp, and was supported in her training by the country’s army. After a short period in Uganda, she moved back to Kenya for the superior training facilities. There, she met Marangach.

Rain envelops the Cheptegei compound (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

“Dickson wasn’t a talented athlete,” says her close friend Emmanuel Kimutai. “He was a boda-boda man (a motorcycle taxi driver), but pretended to be a coach. He was looking for an opportunity.

“He started by escorting the runners with his motorcycle, carrying drinks, but when he realised Rebecca wasn’t in a relationship, he took advantage. He told Rebecca a lot of lies, but I think she wanted companionship. We eventually found out he was with three ladies at the time.”

The issues began when Cheptegei decided to buy her own motorcycle to take Joy and Charity to school. According to the family, Marangach said he would arrange it — and paid for it with Cheptegei’s money — but registered the bike in his name. When Cheptegei complained, Marangach threatened her.

“He keep repeating the same warnings to Rebecca,” says Agnes. “He said he’d maim her ears, maim her nose, maim her genitals.”

On one occasion, Jacob borrowed the motorbike, with his sister’s permission, for a race in Uganda. He says he was chased down by Marangach and three of his friends and had to flee, hiding in a eucalyptus tree to avoid being beaten. Marangach then reported him to the police.

Agnes and Joseph Cheptegei (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

All the while, Cheptegei was winning money from races — more than $50,000 each year.

“Dickson would see the money coming into the bank account, and he had a PIN code,” says Joseph. “He’d spend it how he wanted. Rebecca was uncomfortable with that, and so in April (2024) she went to the bank to change the number.

“After realising Rebecca had done this, Dickson came home in a fury with a machete. Her phone was charging, and he slashed at it with a machete. She ran away from the house in Kinyoro and reported it to the police.”

They say another unprovoked attack took place soon after, when he knocked her out with a punch to her cheek.

“Dickson would tell her she couldn’t go anywhere to get justice, because he said a police officer in Kinyoro was family,” Joseph adds. “He said he would only lose a little, but if Rebecca complained, she would lose everything she has.”

Cheptegei pictured in front of her house, alongside the television on which her family watched her in the Olympics (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Her most important asset was the house in Kinyoro, built strategically between her parents and the training bases of Iten and Eldoret. Joseph points to a framed photo on the wall, of Rebecca standing proudly in front of her new home.

“You see this house? This is why Rebecca was killed,” he says.

By the spring, Cheptegei and Marangach had separated as a couple, yet he continued to insist the plot was in his name, bringing his new partner to the house and refusing to leave. The police detained him, but he was back within a month, this time attempting to change the locks.

“Rebecca couldn’t even take the kids to school that day,” says Joseph. “She called the police at Kinyoro again, but the officer said he was tired of all the complaints at this homestead, and that he didn’t want to hear any more of their domestic argument.”

When asked about the handling of Cheptegei’s case, Jeremiah ole Kosiom, county commander of Trans Nzoia police, said in a phone call: “As a senior officer, no reports reached me from my juniors. The investigation is ongoing.”

This was just before the Olympics, at which Cheptegei finished 44th in the marathon.

“She wasn’t sleeping at home,” says Agnes. “She was fearful for her life. She couldn’t perform because she was so worried about Dickson.”

Cheptegei managed to get the case into the justice system, with the aim of ultimately settling the ownership question. According to her family, the weekend she was attacked, Marangach was unsuccessfully chasing signatures for his own documentation. He then went to a small filling station in Endebess, and bought petrol.

Cheptegei is laid to rest in Bukwo, eastern Uganda, in September (Adreena Nakasujja/Xinhua via Getty Images)

Before her relationship with Marangach, Cheptegei had been briefly married in Uganda to Joy and Charity’s father.

After her death, Joseph reconnected with his daughter’s ex-husband to enquire whether his grandchildren could benefit from land in Uganda she had bought them. He was told that it had already been sold.

Back in Iten, others followed what had happened in Kinyoro in horror. They had been here before.

“When Rebecca Cheptegei died in the same way as Agnes, I was in so much pain,” says Martin Tirop, Agnes’s brother. “I wanted to go and view her body when she was pronounced dead. But when I woke up in the morning, I didn’t have my courage anymore. I was traumatised from what came before.”

Just one month before she died, Tirop had broken the 10,000m world record in the small Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach. When she returned from Germany, she was killed.

Tirop celebrates breaking the world record in Germany in September 2021 (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images for Adidas)

Martin still lives in the compound in Iten which Tirop built with her winnings. As one of Kenya’s most successful female athletes, she typically earned more than $100,000 each year. Sitting in the dimly-lit living room, he points to a door.

“That’s where we found her,” he says.

That morning, October 13, no one had heard from Tirop for 24 hours. After police sawed through the compound gates, Martin was boosted on a family member’s shoulders, allowing him peer into a locked bedroom. There, he saw his sister’s dead body, lying in the doorway in pool of blood.

Tirop’s husband, Rotich, was around 15 years her senior and worked as her coach despite a lack of formal qualifications. Rotich pleaded not guilty to her murder, claiming he was provoked. Pre-trial testimonies are being gathered at Eldoret’s High Court, ahead of a full trial next year.

Tirop’s brother, Martin, at her house in Iten (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Tirop’s family outline how Rotich sought to cut off her support networks.

“Agnes just disappeared from school,” her father Vincent told the court. “Since she was 18 years old, the police said there was nothing they could do about it.”

Her sister Eve testified in court that she had seen Tirop being beaten and crying on the floor. On her return from the Tokyo Olympics in August, it was said Agnes was so afraid she went to stay with her mother, though eventually moved back in with Rotich in Iten.

Martin looks at his sister’s trophies on the walls of their home (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Early on October 12, Tirop’s sister, who lived nearby, told the court she heard screaming and quarrelling at 5am. She said that Rotich gave her 1,000 Kenyan shillings ($7.70; £6.10) that morning to buy meat, insisting she left the house on the errand. When she returned, the gates were locked and she said her sister’s phone was off. Twenty-four hours later, and still without contact, police were summoned to break down the door.

An autopsy found Agnes had been stabbed four times in the neck and hit with a garden hoe. She was 25.

“The problems come when we trust too much in the wrong partner,” says marathon world-record holder Chepngetich. “When we’re tired, we can’t do everything by ourselves. We need help, and that’s when they take advantage — taking our properties, other things as well. And maybe then there can be violence.”

Kenya’s best runners are predominantly Kalenjin, the nation’s third-largest tribe. Traditionally, they are taught that the man is the head of the household — which is why many purchase properties in the man’s name, even if it is funded with the woman athlete’s money.

“You know, most of those female athletes who make it, actually own nothing,” says Tirop’s brother Martin. “Everything is in their husband’s name. There is nothing on record and they need to be protected.”

“My husband has taken firm control of my two petrol stations and proceeds from agricultural land, and I can’t earn from them,” Vivian Cheruiyot, a 5000m gold medallist at the 2016 Olympics, told Kenyan newspaper The Standard last year. “I don’t even know where the title deeds are. I want my property to be safe for the future of my children.” Her husband denies the allegations.

“Men need to learn they are supposed to be the one contributing, rather than using the female to succeed,” says Mary Keitany, a three-time winner of both the New York and London marathons. According to the Gates Foundation, across Kenya, women in rural communities do 50 per cent more labour, but make 80 per cent less income.

According to government research from 2022, around 40 per cent of Kenyan women aged between 15 and 39 have suffered physical abuse in their lifetime.

Chelimo Saina runs a domestic abuse support group through her and her husband’s charity, Shoe4Africa, and still competes for Kenya in masters athletics. A Kalenjin, she points to parts of her tribe’s culture as a factor.

“For men, circumcision at 15 to 17 is a big rite of passage,” she explains. “They’re expected to show no pain. But in the more traditional ceremonies, when they’re taught how to treat a woman, they’re told that occasionally beating a woman is OK. There are the same attitudes in wedding songs. Us women are taught to persevere.”

Chelimo Saina won 200m gold in the 2023 African Masters Championship (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

The abuse can also be sexual. In 2019, a government survey reported that one in six Kenyan women had experienced sexual violence before they turned 18.

“There are so many cases with the girls,” says Jepkosgei. “I deal mostly with Under-20 athletes, and whenever we tour around the country, we realise so many things have happened. I’ve had to rescue girls from some regions. There are so many abortions being done.” Abortion is banned in Kenya unless it is a medical emergency or proved as a product of rape.

Selina Kogo, known affectionately by athletes as ‘Shosh’ (grandmother), works as Tirop’s Angels’ counsellor. Even after almost two decades in this space, some cases shock her — such as that involving a junior international medallist, aged 13 and her so-called coach.

“The problem came during massages,” she says. “He told her that sex is part of the massage, and because she was just an innocent little girl, she thought that if the boss said it was normal, it was normal. He was the one who sent money and sugar home. Within a year, she got pregnant, at the age of just 14 or 15.”

In Kenya, the age of consent is 18. Sex with a minor is considered “defilement” and, in this case, could have been punished by at least 20 years imprisonment if convicted. The assault was never reported.

Selina Kogo outside the Tirop’s Angels headquarters in Iten (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

“She couldn’t run and went home, and then the poverty started,” says Kogo. “But she decided to give running one more shot, with her mother looking after the baby.

“Then another coach came into her life making promises. He offered to help her move to Iten, he proposed to her. She got pregnant again. Within six months he disappeared. She’s still 17, too young to work, and is so demoralised she can’t run.”

Unregulated massage parlours like these are not uncommon in Iten.

“So many girls are sexually violated because they go for a massage before a race and say they have 300 shillings (a few dollars or pounds),” says Lagat. “Then they are told, ‘No, it is 500′ — but if you’re preparing for a race and this is your shot, you can avoid the extra 200 if you do something else.”

That ‘something else’ may also include doping. According to the World Anti-Doping Authority, 44 per cent of positive tests for EPO come from Kenya. With the high levels of coach-partner exploitation, desperate to maximise income, the incentive to gain an unfair advantage is obvious.

“I know two runners where their husbands were the ones helping them get the drugs,” says Saina. “It’s whatever makes them win. And of course, they’re using the athlete’s money to source this.”

Athletics Kenya president Jackson Tuwei acknowledges the likely connection.

“We have started an enhanced anti-doping programme, and want to register all our coaches so we know who is a real coach and who isn’t,” he told The Athletic. “One of the recommendations is to increase the number of female coaches, and that will also help address the gender violence issue.

“A well-trained coach would not do the things we’re hearing about — we want to eliminate those who aren’t.”

Athletics is big business in Kenya — and the question of who is responsible for what is happening to women athletes is a pertinent one.

“In the year she died, (Agnes) reported what happened to Athletics Kenya, but nobody helped her,” says Martin Tirop. “Athletics Kenya and the government raise so much money through athletics. They need to protect female athletes.”

Other athletes, remaining anonymous to protect their position within the team, criticised the body for failing to release a report they say was promised to them in the aftermath of Tirop’s murder, and have also questioned a male dominance on the executive committee (13 men and five women).

Jackson Tuwei, president of Athletics Kenya (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Senior officials at Athletics Kenya have acknowledged that they needed to make significant changes to their protocols after her death, based on recommendations from World Athletics, the sport’s global governing body.

“(Gender-based violence) has continued to happen at a rate we cannot accept,” says Tuwei. “For this to happen, and to particularly happen to a top athlete, it’s very painful, and so we decided that we cannot accept this kind of thing. But we know it’s happened again and again thereafter.”

Athletics Kenya introduced several new policies this year, including a six-person panel — four women and two men — where gender-based violence and other safeguarding issues can be reported. A new office has opened in Eldoret, far closer to the athletes than Nairobi, which also offers support.

Others think some agents should be more aware of the difficulties faced by their athletes.

“In Kenya, we have the problem that there is no relationship with the athlete,” Korir says. “They see you as a money maker, not a person. As long as you are running well, they don’t care how you live.”

After Tirop’s death, the Athletics Integrity Unit — founded by World Athletics to address issues of ethical misconduct — contacted her agent, former Italian runner Gianni Demadonna. Court documents from last month show he was aware of some issues, with his assistant Joseph Chepteget testifying: “Gianni told me to calm to down her composure and mental situation because she was distracted as she was fighting with Ibrahim.”

Police sawed through the grill on the left to access Tirop’s home (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Demadonna, contacted by Swedish Radio last year, defended himself by saying Tirop had asked him to stay out of her personal life.

Speaking to female athletes in Iten, many are also fearful that suspected abusers will not ever have to face justice.

Mutua’s alleged killer has still not been caught. Rotich is on bail — paying a bond of just 400,000 Kenyan shillings (around $3,000) for his freedom.

“Having been in custody for about two years, the accused ought now to be allowed his liberty,” wrote Justice Wananda Anuro in his bail judgement. Although he is barred from Iten, several athletes have expressed distress that Rotich is living in Eldoret.

The doorway of Tirop’s home, where her body was found (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

“And you know the money to pay for the lawyer?” says Jepkosgei. “That’ll be Agnes’ money.”

Policing standards have also been criticised.

“It’s not like Europe or North America,” says Lagat, describing her difficulty in finding safe houses for athletes at Tirop’s Angels. “The police officers in Iten, for someone in crisis, will say, ‘OK, can you come to the office’ or, ‘We don’t have fuel — can you pay for us to come?’

Benjamin Mwanthi, county commander of Uasin Gishu police (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

“I have to pay the police and the local chief to protect my women, or act aggressively with the perpetrator,” says Saina bluntly. “It’s going to happen again, because nothing is being done.”

A police spokesperson for Uasin Gishu County insisted all cases are investigated, but stated they often found that athletes did not follow up their complaints, and claimed many incidents are settled without needing police intervention.

Cheptegei’s family live in the neighbouring county of Trans-Nzoia. They point out that she was actively seeking police assistance, and say she reported Marangach on multiple occasions. 

“Rebecca would not have died if the police acted,” Joseph says. “My daughter complained continuously. Nothing was done.”

Jeremiah ole Kosiom, county commander of Trans-Nzoia police, said in response: “The investigation is ongoing, led by the DCI (detective chief inspector), and if the family are not comfortable with the results of the investigation, they can appeal.”

“Komesha, komesha,” is the chant from over 200 athletes. “Enough is Enough.”

“You have to prove you’re the home of champions,” ends president Tuwei’s speech, to applause.

On November 9, two months after Cheptegei’s death, Athletics Kenya held a day of workshops focused on ending gender-based violence.

Athletics at a gender-based violence workshop in Iten (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Staff pass out numbers of safeguarding officers, and define and explain grooming and psychological abuse. There are lessons on how to handle personal finances, highlighting the Matrimonial Property Act. Coaches were also given warnings — no underage female athletes were ever to be alone with a male trainer, and a no touching policy was now in place across the board.

“Be careful,” says Elizabeth Keitany, the body’s head of safeguarding, during one talk. “You don’t know if somebody is a monster or a human being.”

Other preventative initiatives have also been springing up. Tirop’s Angels and Shoe4Africa are both fundraising for safe houses, the latter to include a mushroom farm, run by its occupants, which it is hoped, will eventually pay for itself outside of donations. Korir runs a school predominantly for talented teenage athletes, Transcend Academy, which aims to remove the opportunity for predatory coaches.

“Before you start winning races, you’re struggling because you have to feed yourself, you have to look for shoes, it’s all on your own,” he explains. “I used to sleep outside, I used to dig latrines and septic tanks. But girls don’t have that luxury — we need to give them a place to develop independently with no strings attached, where opportunists can’t make false promises.”

Brother Colm O’Connell, a 78-year-old Irishman who moved to Iten in 1976, has become known as ‘the godfather of Kenyan running’ for his work with athletes including double Olympic and world champion David Rudisha, Jepkosgei, and Cheruiyot. He ensures a 50-50 split of boys and girls at St Patrick’s High School, Iten, insisting on the importance of mixed groups and mutual understanding.

Brother Colm O’Connell at his holiday training camp (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

“We need to be more proactive than reactive,” he says. “It’s how to interact and behave towards each other, and that starts from day one. Athletics Kenya can’t solve it on their own, Tirop’s Angels can’t stop it on their own. It has to be absolutely combined.

“We do have very solid relationships, we do have husbands supporting their talented wives in the athletics world. I want to spread the good news about Kenya. But the day you stop fighting against this situation is the day you’ve completely lost.”

Back at the Cheptegei’s home, the rain is threatening to block the roads and Jacob has training the next day; Thursday morning intervals, the toughest session of the week.

Rebecca recognised her brother’s talent and passed on tips.

“She’d always tell me I needed to eat after sessions or my body would get weak,” he says. “Ugali, eggs, chicken, of course, even chapati and tea.”

Cheptegei’s family at home near Endebess (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

Jacob dips his head, bashful.

“When it gets hard, I just remember her telling me push on, even when the body says it can’t,” he says.

The suffering is visible. Since the attack, Charity has been too traumatised to return to school, but will try again after the holidays. She whispers that she wants to be an English teacher when she grows up. Rebecca’s oldest daughter, 12-year-old Joy, is also talented and clearly a fast runner.

From left; Joseph, Joy, Charity, Agnes, and Dorcas Cheptegei (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)

The family hope Joy will become an athlete. They also hope Kenya will change before she does.

(Additional reporting: James Gitaka)

(Top photos: Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic; design: Eamonn Dalton)