Agnes Keleti, the world’s oldest Olympic champion and Holocaust survivor, has died at the age of 103.
She passed away on Thursday at Budapest hospital, her press official Tamas Roth told AFP, confirming a report from local sports daily Nemzeti Sport.
She was hospitalised with pneumonia last week.
“We pray for her, she has a great vitality” her son, Rafael Biro-Keleti told local press at the time, saying they would like to celebrate her 104th birthday on January 9th together as a family.
Keleti’s life story, including surviving the Holocaust and Olympic glory, reads like a gripping Hollywood film script, with her feisty spirit never breaking in the face of adversity.
As Hungary’s most successful gymnast, she won ten Olympic medals, all of them after reaching the age of 30 against much younger competitors, including five gold medals in Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956).
Her motivation to do sports was not to chase glory, but to travel abroad, outside the Iron Curtain from the communist-ruled Hungary.
