Agnes Keleti: Holocaust survivor and oldest living Olympic medallist dies at the age of 103
Ms Keleti won 10 Olympic medals in gymnastics, including five golds, for Hungary.
Thursday 2 January 2025 14:19, UK
A Holocaust survivor and the oldest living Olympic medal winner has died at the age of 103.
Agnes Keleti died on Thursday morning in Budapest after she was hospitalised with pneumonia on Christmas Day, the Hungarian state news agency reported.
Regarded as one of the most successful Jewish Olympic athletes, Ms Keleti won 10 medals in gymnastics, including five golds, for Hungary at the 1952 Helsinki Games and the 1956 Melbourne Games.
When celebrating her 100th birthday, she said: "These 100 years felt to me like 60. I live well. And I love life. It's great that I'm still healthy."
Born Agnes Klein in 1921 in Budapest, her career was interrupted by the Second World War and the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics.
Ms Keleti was forced off her gymnastics team in 1941 due to her Jewish ancestry.
She later went into hiding in the Hungarian countryside, where she survived the Holocaust by assuming a false identity and working as a maid.
Her mother and sister survived the war with the help of famed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, but her father and other relatives died at Auschwitz concentration camp.
More than half a million Hungarian Jews were murdered in Nazi death camps and by Hungarian Nazi collaborators during the war.
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After the war, Ms Keleti was unable to compete in the 1948 London Olympics due to an ankle injury.
She eventually made her Olympic debut at the 1952 Helsinki Games at the age of 31, winning a gold medal in the floor exercise as well as a silver and two bronzes.
In 1956, she became the most successful athlete at the Melbourne Olympics, winning four gold and two silver medals.
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While she was becoming the oldest gold medallist in gymnastics history at age 35 in Melbourne, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary following an unsuccessful anti-Soviet uprising.
Ms Keleti remained in Australia and sought political asylum.
She then immigrated to Israel the following year and went on to train and coach the Israeli Olympic gymnastics team until the 1990s.