Five-time Olympic champion Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti, the world’s oldest living Olympic gold medallist and a survivor of the persecution of Jews in World War Two, died at the age of 103 on Thursday, the Hungarian Olympic Committee said.
The International Olympic Committee said in a profile on its website, “Agnes Keleti is the greatest gymnast produced by Hungary, but one whose life and career were intertwined with the politics of her country and her religion.”
She won her first gold at the Helsinki games in 1952, aged 31, when most gymnasts had long been retired, the HOC said.
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Furthermore The HOC said Keleti escaped deportation to Nazi death camps, where hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were killed, by hiding in a village south of Budapest with false papers. Her father and several relatives died in the Auschwitz death camp.
Keleti reached the peak of her career in Melbourne in 1956, where she won four gold medals and became the oldest female gymnast to win gold, the HOC said. A year later, Keleti settled in Israel, where she married and had two children.
Agnes Klein was born in Budapest on Jan. 9, 1921. Keleti joined the National Gymnastics Association in 1938 and won her first Hungarian championship in 1940, only to be banned from all sports activities that year because of her Jewish origin.
In conclusion, her 10 Olympic medals, including five golds, rank Keleti as the second most successful Hungarian athlete of all time, the HOC said. She has also received multiple Hungarian state awards.
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