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Five-time Olympic champion artistic gymnast Ágnes Keleti, the Sportswoman of the Nation, passed away on Thursday at the age of 103. She was Hungary’s most Olympic medal-winning female athlete, as well as the world’s oldest living Olympic champion, Hungarian news site Nemzeti Sport reports. She would have celebrated her 104th birthday next Thursday.
Born Ágnes Klein on January 9, 1921 in Budapest, the family later renamed her to Keleti. She became a member of the national team in 1939, winning her first Hungarian championship in 1940, but was banned from all sporting activities that same year because of her Jewish origins.
At the end of the Second World War, she managed to survive in a village called Szalkszentmárton, some 70 kilometers from Budapest, where she maintained her stamina by running.
Her father and several members of his family died in the Auschwitz concentration camp, while his mother and brother were rescued from Budapest by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
After the Second World War, she played for the TF DISZ and TF Haladás sports teams, as well as for Dózsa Budapest, among others. In the meantime she graduated from the Hungarian University of Sports Science, where she later became a teacher. Between 1947 and 1956, she was 46 times Hungarian champion in various disciplines, including ten times Hungarian individual combined champion and seven times team champion. No one won the gymnastics championship in Hungary more than her.
Photo: MTI/Hegedüs Róbert
Regarding the Olympics, Ágnes Keleti won a gold medal in 1952 in Helsinki in the floor exercise, silver in the team competition, and bronze in the team portable apparatus event and the uneven bars.
She reached the peak of her career in Melbourne in 1956, defending her title on floor, while also winning gold on bars and balance beam.
She became the most successful gymnast at the Olympic Games in 1956 and the oldest woman, at the age of 35, to win a gold medal.
Ágnes Keleti later worked as a college teacher, coach, federation captain and competition referee in gymnastics. She did so in Israel and Hungary, and briefly in Italy.
Among her many awards, she is the Olympic gold ring winner of the Hungarian Olympic Committee, Honorary Member of the Hungarian Olympic Committee, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award of Fair Play, Ágnes Keleti was also the Honorary Citizen of Budapest, and Athlete of the Nation.
On Wednesday last week she was hospitalized with heart failure and respiratory problems, and she was diagnosed with pneumonia. Her death made Charles Coste the oldest living Olympic champion, the French cyclist having won gold at the 1948 Games.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán bid farewell to Ágnes Keleti on Facebook, thanking her for her sports achievements.
Head of State Tamás Sulyok wrote on his social media page that on behalf of the entire nation, he bids farewell to Ágnes Keleti and share the grief of the family and the sport.
Featured photo via MTI/Hegedüs Róbert