World's oldest living Olympic gold medalist Agnes Keleti dies at 103
Olympic champion Agnes Keleti, the world’s oldest living Olympic gold medallist died at the age of 103 on Thursday, the Hungarian Olympic Committee said.
Five-time Olympic champion Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti, the world’s oldest living Olympic gold medalist and a survivor of the persecution of Jews in World War II, died at the age of 103 on Thursday, the Hungarian Olympic Committee said.
Born as Agnes Klein in Budapest on Jan. 9, 1921, Keleti joined the National Gymnastics Association in 1938 and won her first Hungarian championship in 1940, only to be banned from all sports activities that year because of her Jewish origin.
“Agnes Keleti is the greatest gymnast produced by Hungary, but one whose life and career were intertwined with the politics of her country and her religion,” the International Olympic Committee said in a profile on its website.
Agnes Keleti holds a picture of herself, in Herzliya, Israel, in 2012.Oded Balilty / AP fileThe HOC said Keleti escaped deportation to Nazi death camps, where hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were killed, by hiding in a village south of Budapest with false papers. Her father and several relatives died in the Auschwitz death camp.
She won her first gold at the Helsinki games in 1952 aged 31, when most gymnasts had long been retired, the HOC said.
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