Ágnes Keleti, Holocaust survivor and oldest living Olympic medal winner, dies at 103
FILE - Hungarian-Israeli retired Olympic and world champion in artistic gymnastics Agnes Keleti poses for a photo after she was decorated with Frances Gold Medal of Youth, Sports and Associative Commitment in her apartment in Budapest, Hungary, on Se
BUDAPEST, Hungary - Ágnes Keleti, a Holocaust survivor and the oldest living Olympic medal winner, has died at 103.
Keleti died on Thursday morning in Budapest, the Hungarian state news agency reported. On Christmas Day, she was hospitalized in critical condition with pneumonia.
Keleti overcame the death of her father and several relatives in the Holocaust to become one of the most successful Jewish Olympic athletes – winning a total of 10 Olympic medals in gymnastics. That includes five golds, for Hungary at the 1952 Helsinki Games and the 1956 Melbourne Games.
"These 100 years felt to me like 60," Keleti told The Associated Press on the eve of her 100th birthday. "I live well. And I love life. It’s great that I’m still healthy."
Who was Ágnes Keleti?
Born Ágnes Klein in 1921 in Budapest, her career was interrupted by World War II and the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics.
Because of her Jewish ancestry, she was forced off her gymnastics team in 1941. She went into hiding in the Hungarian countryside, where she survived the Holocaust by assuming a false identity and working as a maid, according to the Associated Press.
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, among the more than half a million Hungarian Jews killed in Nazi death camps and by Hungarian Nazi collaborators.
Resuming her career after the war, Keleti was set to compete at the 1948 London Olympics, but a last-minute ankle injury dashed her hopes.
Four years later, she 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.
While she was becoming the oldest gold medalist in gymnastics history at age 35 in Melbourne, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary following an unsuccessful anti-Soviet uprising. Keleti remained in Australia and sought political asylum, according to the Associated Press.
She then immigrated to Israel the following year and worked as a trainer and coached the Israeli Olympic gymnastics team until the 1990s.
The Source: This story was written based on reporting on Jan. 2, 2025, by the Hungarian state news agency. It was reported from Cincinnati, and the Associated Press contributed.