Hungarian-Israeli retired Olympic and world champion artistic gymnast Agnes Keleti shows a gold medal won during the Olympic Games in Helsinki 1952 and another one won in Melbourne 1956. 2020. Photo: AFP
Agnes Keleti, the world's oldest living Olympic gold medallist and a Holocaust survivor, has died at the age of 103.
The Hungarian 10-time Olympic medallist and Holocaust survivor, died on Thursday 2 January 2025, having been admitted to hospital in a critical condition with pneumonia on Christmas Day.
An International Olympic Committee statement said the former artistic gymnast lived a full life "surviving the horrors of the Holocaust yet always retaining hope of achieving her Olympic dream".
IOC President Thomas Bach said Keleti passed away only a week before her 104th birthday.
"She will be remembered forever for her inspirational story.
"Agnes Keleti has demonstrated the power of strong determination and courage to overcome tragedy when she, born to a Jewish family, survived the Holocaust and went on to win ten Olympic medals after World War II, five of them Gold," he said.
"This is truly awe-inspiring. Our thoughts are with her family and her friends."
Keleti was born in Budapest in 1921 and became a national champion in 1937 aged 16, Keleti then missed two Olympic Games following the outbreak of World War II.
Keleti, who had Jewish ancestry, went into hiding, assuming the false identity of a Christian maid. Her mother and sister also survived, but her father and other relatives were killed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
A ligament injury dashed Keleti's hopes of competing at London 1948, so it was at the Helsinki 1952 Games that the 31-year-old made her debut, coming away with one gold medal, a silver, and two bronze.
Keleti won a further six Olympic medals at Melbourne in 1956, four of which were gold, to become the most successful athlete of the Games.
Of all her ten medals, Keleti's very first was the one she prized most, she told Olympics.com in an interview ahead of Tokyo 2020.
"It's my favourite one because the floor exercise is the place where I do what I want, and I can be myself."
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