Agnes Keleti, the world’s oldest Olympic champion and a Holocaust survivor, passed away at the age of 103. Her death was confirmed on Thursday by her press official, Tamas Roth, following a report from the local sports daily Nemzeti Sport. She had been hospitalized with pneumonia the previous week. Her son, Rafael Biro-Keleti, had expressed hope to celebrate her 104th birthday as a family on January 9.
Keleti's extraordinary life story is one of resilience and triumph, blending survival during the Holocaust with Olympic success. As Hungary’s most decorated gymnast, she won ten Olympic medals, including five golds, competing against younger rivals after the age of 30. Her achievements at the Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956) Games marked her as a legend in the sport.
Her initial motivation for pursuing gymnastics was not for fame but to travel beyond the confines of communist Hungary. In a 2016 interview, she explained, “I was competing not because I liked it, but because I wanted to see the world.”
Born Agnes Klein in Budapest on January 9, 1921, she later adopted the surname Keleti. She joined Hungary’s national gymnastics team in 1939 and claimed her first Hungarian title the following year. However, her Jewish heritage led to her exclusion from sports in 1940.
When Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, Keleti evaded deportation by acquiring false documents, giving up all her belongings, and assuming the identity of a young Christian woman. While working as a maid in hiding, she secretly trained along the Danube whenever she had free time. Tragically, her father and other relatives perished in Auschwitz, though her mother and sister survived thanks to the efforts of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
After the failed Hungarian uprising of 1956, Keleti chose not to return to Hungary following the Melbourne Olympics. She settled in Israel, where she married Hungarian sports teacher Robert Biro in 1959 and had two children. She later transitioned to coaching, training the Israeli national gymnastics team and working as a physical education teacher.
Keleti returned to Hungary in 1983 for the World Gymnastics Championships and moved back permanently in 2015. Reflecting on her life, she remarked in 2020, shortly before her 100th birthday, “It was worth doing something well in life. The attention I’ve received gives me shivers when I see all the articles written about me.”
