The world's oldest Olympic champion died

Ágnes Keleti was the oldest living Olympic champion and Olympic medalist at the time of her death. She is the oldest living Olympic champion in history.

The Jew Keleti (née Klein) won Olympic gold in gymnastics in Helsinki in 1952.

Keleti's biggest success came in the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, where at the age of 35 she won gold medals in the uneven bars, beam, floor and team competition.

In addition to five Olympic golds, Keleti achieved five other Olympic medals in 1952 and 1956 and the world championship on uneven bars in 1954.



Keleti's life involved many dramatic phases. She would have already been a medal hope at the 1940 Helsinki Olympics, but the Second World War canceled the 1940 and 1944 Olympic games.

Keleti's father and relatives were murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Ágnes Keleti herself had to evade Jewish persecution with, among other things, fake identity papers and a quick marriage. She hid in the Hungarian countryside and managed to avoid being sent to a concentration camp.

In the winter of 1944-1945, the Soviet Union besieged Budapest, and Keleti had to place the bodies he found in a mass grave.

After the successful Melbourne Olympics, Ágnes Keleti never returned to Hungary due to the invasion by the Soviet Union. She received asylum in Australia, from where she soon moved to Israel.



In Israel, Keleti worked as a gymnastics teacher and gave birth to two sons.

Sources: Wikipedia, Times of Israel