Kelvin Kiptum: Four men who visited home before car crash are arrested

Four unnamed men have been detained after Kiptum’s father called for an official investigation to be opened

Arrests have been made over claims four strangers came looking for marathon record-holder Kelvin Kiptum at his home in the days before his fatal car crash.
Kenyan police confirmed four unnamed men had been detained after Kiptum’s father, Samson Cheruiyot, called for an official investigation into a visit he said took place in the lead-up to Sunday’s tragedy.
A lawyer representing the men, Kipyegon Lagat, said their “conscience was clear” but confirmed to The Times that they had been representing a Chinese company involved in a contract dispute with Kiptum. 
Lagat said: “My clients were present at Kiptum’s family for a good cause. They were welcomed and received by the father of the deceased, the mother and the widow. They were even given food. They stayed there for almost three hours. The meeting was successful.”
K24 TV reported Keiyo South Sub County Commandant Abdullahi Dahir as stating the quartet had been held at Kaptagat Police Station in Elgeyo Marakwet County before being transferred to Iten for further questioning.
“The four were taken to Elgeyo Marakwet for further investigations,” he said. “They all come from Uasin Gishu County.”
The arrests followed a public appeal by Cheruiyot for the Kenyan government to conduct an investigation into the alleged visit.
“There are people who came home a while back who were looking for Kiptum but they refused to identify themselves – I asked them to provide identification, but they opted to leave. It was a group of four people,” Cheruiyot told Citizen TV.
“I got the news of my son’s death while I was watching the news. I went to the scene of the accident but the police had taken the body to Eldoret. Kiptum was my only child.
“If he was alive, we would have great opportunities ahead. At our age, we don’t have any help and he has left children.”
Kiptum’s widow, Asenath Cheruto Rotich, has also told of how training to break the two-hour barrier left her husband with a “headache” just before his fatal crash.
A summary of an interview with Rotich by Nation described how Kiptum complained he was “exhausted” after training the day before the car he was driving veered off the road and into a ditch, hitting a tree.
It went on to recount how a subsequent headache forced the London Marathon champion to break a promise to take his wife and children for an outing the next day but that he later informed her he was going for further training and spoke to his two children for the final time at around 8pm local time on Sunday.
He was said to have promised to phone her shortly afterwards, during half-time of the Premier League match between Aston Villa and Manchester United.
However, the call never came and she went to bed before being woken by a visit from Kiptum’s mother after 11pm, with the family having received misleading reports the athlete may have been carjacked.
Rotich earlier told Citizen TV she had warned her husband he “trained too much” trying to become the first person to break the two-hour barrier in an official race at April’s Rotterdam Marathon.
She said: “He hoped to run in sub two hours. He was working hard and sometimes I told him he trained too much and when the time comes he will be too tired but he would say, ‘No, it is fine’, and that he is supposed to go 10 laps.
“I used to tell him to rest on Sundays, but he would refuse. We had planned to go with him to Rotterdam in April. And now it is not possible.”
Kiptum, who was 24, was regarded as a once-in-a-generation talent after winning his first three marathons, including a course record in London last April before becoming the first person to go under 2hr 1min when he set a new world record in Chicago in October.
He was favourite for Olympic gold in Paris and had told his father that he was ready to become the first man to run the 26.2 mile distance in under two hours in an official race at the Rotterdam Marathon in April.
Kiptum died on the road between Elodret and Kaptagat, an area that is home to many of the best endurance runners in the world, including Eliud Kipchoge, the previous world record-holder and the reigning double Olympic champion.
A first head-to-head race between Kipchoge and Kiptum was expected to be one of the highlights of Paris 2024.
Kiptum’s coach, Gervais Hakizimana, was also killed in Sunday’s car crash but a third passenger in the Toyota Premio, Sharon Chepkirui Kosgei, was taken to hospital in nearby Eldoret where she was later discharged.