Ágnes Keleti, Holocaust survivor and the oldest living Olympic medal winner, dies at age 103

BUDAPEST – Ágnes Keleti, a Holocaust survivor and the oldest dwelling Olympic medal winner, has died. She was 103.

Keleti died Thursday morning in Budapest, the Hungarian state information company reported. She was hospitalized in vital situation with pneumonia on Dec. 25.

She gained a complete of 10 Olympic medals in gymnastics, together with 5 golds, for Hungary on the 1952 Helsinki Video games and the 1956 Melbourne Video games. She overcame the lack of her father and a number of other family members within the Holocaust to develop into probably the most profitable Jewish Olympic athletes.

“These 100 years felt to me like 60,” Keleti told The Associated Press on the eve of her a hundredth birthday. “I dwell effectively. And I really like life. It’s nice that I’m nonetheless wholesome.”

Born Ágnes Klein in 1921 in Budapest, her profession was interrupted by World Warfare II and the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics. Compelled off her gymnastics crew in 1941 due to her Jewish ancestry, Keleti went into hiding within the Hungarian countryside, the place she survived the Holocaust by assuming a false id and dealing as a maid.

Her mom and sister survived the warfare with the assistance of famed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, however her father and different family members perished at Auschwitz, among the many greater than half one million Hungarian Jews killed in Nazi demise camps and by Hungarian Nazi collaborators.

Resuming her profession after the warfare, Keleti was set to compete on the 1948 London Olympics, however a last-minute ankle damage dashed her hopes.

4 years later, she made her Olympic debut on the 1952 Helsinki Video games on the age of 31, profitable a gold medal within the flooring train in addition to a silver and two bronzes. In 1956, she turned probably the most profitable athlete on the Melbourne Olympics, profitable 4 gold and two silver medals.

Whereas she was changing into the oldest gold medalist in gymnastics historical past at age 35 in Melbourne, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary following an unsuccessful anti-Soviet rebellion. Keleti remained in Australia and sought political asylum. She then immigrated to Israel the next 12 months and labored as a coach and coached the Israeli Olympic gymnastics crew till the Nineteen Nineties.