Agnes Keleti, the oldest Olympic champion, former Hungarian-Israeli Olympian and world gymnastics champion aged 103, is the son of Hungarian-Spanish football legend Ferenc Puskas, aka Next to the Wax Figure of Pancho , reacting during a brief visit to Tussauds. Museum. April 26, 2024, Budapest. (Photo by ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP)
BUDAPEST – Agnes Keleti, a five-time Olympic gymnastics champion, the world’s oldest Olympic gold medalist and a survivor of the persecution of Jews during World War II, died Thursday at the age of 103, Hungary announced the Olympic Committee.
Born Agnes Klein in Budapest on January 9, 1921, Keleti joined the American Gymnastics Association in 1938 and won her first Hungarian championship in 1940, but that year she was excluded from all sporting activities due to her Jewish heritage.
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“Agnès Keleti was the greatest gymnast Hungary has ever produced, but her life and career were tied to the country’s politics and religion,” the International Olympic Committee said in a profile on its website.
HOC said Keleti hid in a village south of Budapest with false documents to avoid being deported to Nazi concentration camps where hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were murdered. His father and several relatives died in the Auschwitz extermination camp.
According to the HOC, she won her first gold medal at the 1952 Helsinki Games at the age of 31, when most gymnasts were long retired.
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According to the HOC, Keleti reached the pinnacle of her career in Melbourne in 1956, where she won four gold medals, making her the oldest gymnast to win a gold medal. A year later, Keleti moved to Israel, where she married and had two children.
Keleti has won 10 Olympic medals, including five gold medals, making him the second most successful Hungarian athlete in history, the HOC said. She also received several Hungarian state awards.
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