Horrific deaths of gymnast, Olympian reminder of violence women face daily. It has to stop

Kara Welsh and Rebecca Cheptegei would seem to have had little in common.

Welsh was an American gymnast, a Division III national champion on vault two seasons ago. At 21, she was about to begin her senior year in college. Cheptegei was a Ugandan runner who finished 44^th in the marathon at the Paris Olympics last month. At 33, she had two young daughters.

Within days of each other, though, Welsh and Cheptegei were dead, their lives cut short in the same horrific and inexcusable way. Like far too many other women, both in this country and around the globe, Welsh and Cheptegei were killed by their intimate partners.

It does not matter who you are or where you live or what you do or how old you are. Until society values women equally, until women are seen as having the same worth as men, all women are at risk.

“We have allowed it to happen that we don’t even condemn it anymore,” Viola Cheptoo Lagat, a Kenyan runner who started Tirop’s Angels to combat domestic violence after fellow marathoner Agnes Tirop’s murder in 2021, told Voice of America after Cheptegei died Thursday.

“We’ve made it a norm to see a woman being beaten — to see somebody snatching somebody’s property and us not screaming out loud about it until somebody is lost.”

The details of both Welsh and Cheptegei’s killings are grim and, naturally, drew widespread horror and condemnation.

Welsh was shot eight times by her boyfriend Aug. 30, according to the criminal complaint against Chad T. Richards released Friday. Though he told police it was self-defense, detectives said Welsh’s wounds and evidence at the scene suggest at least some of the shots were fired while she was in a fetal position.

Cheptegei suffered burns on 80% of her body after her ex-boyfriend doused her in gasoline Sunday and lit her on fire. She died four days later after her organs failed.

Awful as both these incidents are, they're examples of what happens every day across the world.

Around 48,800 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members in 2022, according to a United Nations report on femicide released last November. That means more than 133 women are killed each day by a family member or intimate partner.

Not hurt or hospitalized.

Killed.

These numbers include women who are killed in the middle of a dispute. Women killed after being raped. Women killed in dowry or "honor" killings. Women who were trafficked. Women accused of witchcraft. And on and on.

Those killings don’t occur in vacuums, either. These girls and women leave shattered loved ones behind. Like Cheptegei’s daughters, who were with their mother when she was attacked and had to watch her burn.

Or Welsh’s older sister, Kaeli.

“My little sister, Kara, was my life. She was always smiling, always knew just what to say to make people laugh, and was my overall favorite person on the planet," Kaeli Welsh said during a Tuesday court appearance for Richards.

And much as we’d like to pretend domestic violence doesn’t happen to anyone we know, the numbers show that can’t possibly be true.

In North America alone, the UN reports almost 2,500 women and girls were killed by family members or intimate partners in 2022. While femicide rates in South and Central America dropped between 2017-2022, numbers in North America rose — by 29% — and the U.N. said the increase is largely driven by the United States.

“The United States has recorded an increase in female intimate partner/family-related homicides in recent years, especially since 2020,” according to the report.

Now consider how many incidents of domestic violence still go unreported or, if they are reported, unpunished, and you begin to get an idea of the scale of the crisis. Men still make up the vast majority — 80% — of homicide victims worldwide, but women are 66% of the victims in intimate partner killings.

The proliferation of guns in the United States is partly to blame. But the way we continue to allow women to be demeaned and marginalized is just as damaging.

The former president of the United States was found by a civil jury to have sexually abused a woman and it hasn’t disqualified him from again being the Republican nominee. His running mate, meanwhile, insults women almost every time he opens his mouth, suggesting they have little use other than to have and take care of children.

Abortion restrictions threaten the health and safety of women. Women still face barriers in corporate America and in government. Schools continue to shortchange their female students, athletes in particular.

When these are the examples our boys and young men see, is it any wonder some think women don’t have equal value? When this is the environment surrounding them, can we really be surprised if some consider the bodies and souls of women expendable?

The outrage and soul-searching over what caused Welsh and Cheptegei’s deaths is encouraging. But there were 132 other women who died the day Welsh did. There were 132 more who died on the day Cheptegei did. Those girls and women were worth just as much, and their deaths were equally senseless.

It has to stop.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.