BUDAPEST, Hungary — Holocaust survivor Ágnes Keleti, the world’s oldest living Olympic medal winner, has died.
Keleti, who was 103, had been hospitalized in critical condition with pneumonia since Christmas Day. She died Thursday morning in Budapest, The Associated Press said, citing the Hungarian state news agency.
“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.”
Born as Ágnes Klein in 1921, she was forced off her gymnastic team in 1941 because of her Jewish ancestry and went into hiding in the Hungarian countryside, assuming a false identity and working as a maid, the AP said.
She overcame the loss of her father and several relatives at Auschwitz, among the more than half a million Hungarian Jews killed in Nazi death camps and by Hungarian Nazi collaborators.
Her mother and sister survived the war with the help of famed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
Keleti went on to become one of the most successful Jewish Olympic athletes.
The war led to the cancellation of the Olympic games in 1940 and 1944. Keleti was set to compete in the London games in 1948 but sidelined by a last-minute ankle injury.
She won a total of 10 Olympic medals in gymnastics, including five golds, for Hungary at the 1952 Helsinki Games and the 1956 Melbourne Games.
In Melbourne, at the age of 35, she became the oldest gold medalist in gymnastics history.
At that time, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary following an unsuccessful anti-Soviet uprising. Keleti remained in Australia and sought political asylum. She then immigrated to Israel the following year and worked as a trainer and coached the Israeli Olympic gymnastics team until the 1990s.
