Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti, five-time Olympic champion, oldest Olympic gold medalist and Holocaust survivor, died Thursday January 2 at the age of 103, the Hungarian Olympic Committee announced.
Born on January 9, 1921 in Budapest as Agnes Klein, Keleti joined the National Gymnastics Association in 1938 and won her first Hungarian championship in 1940, before being banned from all sporting activities that year due to of his Jewish origin. “Agnes Keleti is the greatest gymnast Hungary has produced, but her life and career are linked to the politics and religion of her country”the International Olympic Committee said in a profile published on its website.
The committee said Agnes Keleti escaped deportation to Nazi extermination camps, where hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were killed, by hiding in a village south of Budapest with false papers. His father and several members of his family died in Auschwitz.
Agnes Keleti won her first gold medal at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952, at the age of 31, an age by which most gymnasts have already retired, according to the Hungarian Olympic Committee. The champion reached the peak of her career in Melbourne in 1956, where she won four gold medals and became the oldest gymnast to win gold.
A year later, Agnes Keleti moved to Israel, where she married and had two children. Her ten Olympic medals, including five gold, make her the second most successful Hungarian athlete of all time, according to the Hungarian Olympic Committee. She also received numerous awards from the Hungarian state.
