Agnes Keleti, holocaust survivor and oldest olympic champion, dies at 103

Agnes Keleti, the world's oldest Olympic champion and a Holocaust survivor, has passed away at the age of 103.

She died on Thursday in a Budapest hospital, as confirmed by local sports daily Nemzeti Sport. Keleti had been hospitalised with pneumonia last week.

"We pray for her; she has a great vitality," her son, Rafael Biro-Keleti, told local media at the time.

Keleti's extraordinary life, marked by surviving the Holocaust and achieving Olympic glory, unfolds like a compelling Hollywood screenplay. Despite facing immense challenges, her indomitable spirit remained unbroken.

As Hungary's most successful gymnast, Keleti won ten Olympic medals, including five golds, all after the age of 30, competing against much younger athletes. Her triumphs came at the Helsinki Games in 1952 and the Melbourne Games in 1956.

Keleti once revealed her initial motivation for pursuing sports was not to seek fame but to travel beyond the Iron Curtain of communist Hungary. "I was competing not because I liked it but because I wanted to see the world," she told AFP in 2016.

A Life of Adversity and Triumph

Born Agnes Klein on 9 January 1921 in Budapest, she later changed her surname to the more Hungarian-sounding Keleti.

Dubbed "the queen of gymnastics," Keleti joined Hungary's national team in 1939 and won her first Hungarian title in 1940. However, she was soon banned from competing due to her Jewish heritage.

During the Nazi occupation of Hungary in 1944, Keleti evaded deportation by obtaining false identity papers in exchange for all her possessions, assuming the guise of a young Christian woman. While in hiding, she worked as a maid and continued training in secret on the banks of the Danube whenever she had the chance.

Her father and several relatives perished in Auschwitz, but her mother and sister survived, thanks to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

After the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, held just weeks after Hungary's failed anti-Soviet uprising, Keleti chose not to return to her homeland. She later settled in Israel, where she met and married Hungarian sports teacher Robert Biro in 1959. The couple had two children.

Post-retirement, Keleti dedicated herself to teaching physical education and coaching Israel's national gymnastics team.

She returned to Hungary briefly in 1983 for the World Gymnastics Championships and relocated there permanently in 2015.

"It was worth doing something well in life, considering the attention I have received," she remarked in 2020, weeks before her 100th birthday. "I get the shivers when I see all the articles written about me."

Tributes Pour In

Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), paid tribute to Keleti's remarkable legacy.

"Agnes Keleti has demonstrated the power of strong determination and courage to overcome tragedy when she, born to a Jewish family, survived the Holocaust and went on to win ten Olympic medals after World War II, five of them gold," he said in a statement.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also honoured Keleti, writing on Facebook, "Thank you for everything," accompanied by a photo of her.

With Keleti's passing, 100-year-old Frenchman Charles Coste, a gold medallist in men's team cycling pursuit at the 1948 London Games, becomes the oldest living Olympic champion. Coste, born on 8 February 1924, carried the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris Games last year.

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