Kenya’s former 400-metres hurdles champion Nicholas Bett died in a car accident early on Wednesday.

He had just returned from the African Athletics Championships in Nigeria when he died in a road accident in Nandi, northwestern Kenya.

Nandi county commander Patrick Wambani and close members from his family confirmed the incident to local media saying that the car he was in veered off the Eldoret-Kapsabet road.

The area has been known to have thick morning fog due to the cold July-August months in Kenya but Wambani noted that this could not be immediately confirmed as the cause of the accident.

In 2015 Bett won a gold medal in the Beijing Championships becoming the first Kenyan to win such a short distance race category beating Dennis Kudryavsten from Russia.