The world's oldest Olympic champion, Agnes Keleti, has died at the age of 103

A five-time Olympic gold medalist with an exceptional career, this tireless sportswoman born on January 9, 1921 fled Hungary in 1944.

A figure of Olympism. Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti, the oldest Olympic champion in the world, died Thursday January 2 at the age of 103, according to her press officer. She died in a hospital in Budapest, after being hospitalized last week with pneumonia, just days before her 104th birthday.

A five-time Olympic gold medalist with an exceptional career, this tireless sportswoman born on January 9, 1921 had an extraordinary life. She won a total of ten Olympic medals, including five golds at the Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956) Olympic Games, all after the age of 30. Hungary was then behind the Iron Curtain, under Soviet rule. “I did sport not because it made me feel good but to see the world”she told AFP in 2016.

Called up to the national team in 1939, the queen of the routines was quickly banned from any sporting activity because of her Jewish origins. After the occupation of Hungary by the Third Reich in March 1944, she escaped deportation by obtaining false documents and assuming the identity of a young Christian, in exchange for all her possessions.

While hiding in the countryside, she worked as a servant but secretly trained on the banks of the Danube when she had some free time. His father and several members of his family were deported and exterminated in Auschwitz, while his mother and sister were saved thanks to the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

Like many Hungarian athletes, Agnes Keleti did not return home after the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, which took place a few weeks after the failure of the anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, and settled in Israel. She only returned to Hungary permanently in 2015.