Agnes Keleti, who recently passed away at the age of 103, has left an enduring legacy not only as the oldest living Olympic champion, but also as a survivor of WWII’s harrowing Holocaust.
Right at the beginning of 2025, the sporting world bid goodbye to a legend as Agnes Keleti — who stands as the oldest Olympic champion in the world—passed away from complications of pneumonia at the age of 103, according to a report from the CBC.
Her sporting achievements alone are impressive, as she won a total of 10 Olympic medals throughout her long career; yet this doesn’t even take into account the fact that she lived through the discrimination and persecution of World War II (WWII) as a Jewish woman in her birthplace of Hungary, and lost her father and several relatives to the Auschwitz concentration camps.
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The Challenges Of War
Born Agnes Klein in 1921 Budapest, the young Keleti enjoyed a life filled with music and sports, engaging in gymnastics lessons, swimming, and playing the cello, as Richard Goldstein writes in The New York Times. Unfortunately, the beginning of WWII interrupted her budding gymnastics career, canceling the 1940 and 1944 Olympics and also forcing her out of her team in 1941 due to the anti-semetic sentiments that were reaching a boiling point.
While she lost her father Ferenc Klein, Keleti herself—as well as her mother and sister—was able to survive the Holocaust by going into hiding in the Hungarian countryside through false papers declaring her to be Christian and working as a maid.
However, even after the war, the athlete would still have to grapple with a sudden ankle injury that prevented her from competing in the 1948 London Olympics.
Emerging Victorious
Thankfully, Keleti continued to persevere, finally making her Olympic debut at the 1952 Helsinki Games, where she won four medals at the age of 31: a gold medal in individual floor exercises, a silver medal, and two bronze medals.
She would only continue to improve after that, going on to win six medals in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, including four gold medals.
That said, Keleti’s Olympic career was once again affected by political turmoil in Budapest (where Soviet tanks entered the capital to quell an uprising) and Egypt (where Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula), which led to a boycott of the 1956 Olympics. Hungary still competed in the games, though many athletes like Keleti ended up defecting.
Nevertheless, she remained devoted to her sport, settling down in Australia before moving to Israel to serve as a physical education teacher at the Orde Wingate Institute and a coach for the national women’s gymnastics team.
In the face of all these challenges, Keleti’s biggest achievement seems to be her unbreakable spirit and joy. As Today reveals in a video report, upon turning 100 years old, the Olympic champion had this to say: “These 100 years felt to me like 60: I live well, and I love life.”
