Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei set on fire, severely burned weeks after Paris Games

Warning: This story contains details of gender-based violence and murder.

A Ugandan Olympic athlete living in Kenya was attacked and set on fire by a man believed to be her boyfriend and suffered burns on 80 per cent of her body, Kenyan police and medical officials said. 

Police say Rebecca Cheptegei was attacked on Sunday at her house in the town of Endebess in western Trans Nzoia County, situated along the Kenya-Uganda border.

Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said Monday that Dickson Ndiema Marangach, the Kenyan man reported to be Cheptegei's boyfriend, bought a jerrycan of gas, poured it on her and set her ablaze following a disagreement.

Kenya's The Nation reported that 33-year-old Cheptegei had been at church with her two children Sunday afternoon before the attack happened and that, according to a report filed by a local chief, Marangach snuck into her home while she was out. 

The local chief's report stated that before the fire started, the pair was heard fighting over the land on which the house was built.

Marangach also sustained burn wounds to 30 per cent of his body, according to Kenya's The Star. 

The two have been treated in the intensive care unit at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in the city of Eldoret, 90 kilometres south of the town where the attack happened.

Kenyan government sports official Peter Tum said Wednesday there are plans to airlift Cheptegei to capital city Nairobi, where doctors can provide her with specialized treatment. 

Cheptegei's parents said their daughter bought land in Trans Nzoia to be near the county's many athletic training centres.

Her family, speaking to reporters outside the hospital on Tuesday, disputed the claim that Marangach was her