Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Holocaust survivor and oldest living Olympic medal-winner dies at 103
Agnes Keleti, former Olympic gold medal winning gymnast, smiles at her flat in Budapest, Hungary, January 8, 2020

AGNES KELETI, a Holocaust survivor and the oldest living Olympic medal-winner, has died. She was 103.

Keleti died this morning in Budapest, the Hungarian state news agency reported. She was hospitalised in critical condition with pneumonia on December 25.

She won a total of 10 Olympic medals in gymnastics, including five golds, for Hungary at the 1952 Helsinki Games and the 1956 Melbourne Games. She overcame the loss of her father and several relatives in the Holocaust to become one of the most successful Jewish Olympic athletes.

“These 100 years felt to me like 60,” Keleti told the Associated Press on the eve of her 100th birthday. “I live well. And I love life. It’s great that I’m still healthy.”

Born Agnes Klein in 1921 in Budapest, her career was interrupted by World War II and the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics. Forced off her gymnastics team in 1941 because of her Jewish ancestry, Keleti went into hiding in the Hungarian countryside, where she survived the Holocaust by assuming a false identity and working as a maid.

Her mother and sister survived the war with the help of famed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, but her father and other relatives perished at Auschwitz, among the more than half a million Hungarian Jews killed in Nazi death camps and by Hungarian Nazi collaborators.

Resuming her career after the war, Keleti was set to compete at the 1948 London Olympics, but a last-minute ankle injury dashed her hopes.

Four years later, she made her Olympic debut at the 1952 Helsinki Games at the age of 31, winning a gold medal in the floor exercise as well as a silver and two bronzes. In 1956, she became the most successful athlete at the Melbourne Olympics, winning four gold and two silver medals.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Memorial candles are lit during a Holocaust Memorial Day com
Holocaust Memorial Day 2025 / 27 January 2025
27 January 2025
The proponents and enablers of Holocaust distortion and anti-communism now have increasing political power and influence in a number of European countries, obstructing an understanding of the reality of fascism’s crimes, warns MARY DAVIS
Soviet soldiers liberating Auschwitz concentration camp on J
Holocaust Memorial Day 2025 / 27 January 2025
27 January 2025
STEVE SILVER tells the horrifying story of the Nazis' last act of mass barbarity when they forced tens of thousands of prisoners in the camp to march into the snow at gunpoint to hide the evidence from the advancing Red Army
Bryony Page of Britain celebrates after winning the gold med
Women's Gymnastics / 2 August 2024
2 August 2024