Agnes Keleti, world’s oldest Olympic champion, dies at 103

BUDAPEST: Agnes Keleti, the world´s oldest Olympic champion, has died at the age of 103. She passed away on Thursday at Budapest hospital, her press official Tamas Roth told AFP, confirming a report from local sports daily Nemzeti Sport.

She was hospitalised with pneumonia last week. “We pray for her, she has a great vitality” her son, Rafael Biro-Keleti told local press at the time, saying they would like to celebrate her 104th birthday on January 9th together as a family.

Keleti´s life story reads like a gripping Hollywood film script, with her feisty spirit never breaking in the face of adversity. As Hungary´s most successful gymnast, she won ten Olympic medals, all of them after reaching the age of 30 against much younger competitors, including five gold medals in Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956).

Her motivation to do sports was not to chase glory, but to travel abroad, outside the Iron Curtain from the communist-ruled Hungary. “I was competing not because I liked it but I did it because I wanted to see the world,” she told AFP in 2016.

Born on 9 January 1921 in Budapest as Agnes Klein, she later changed her surname to the more Hungarian-sounding Keleti. Called up to the national team in 1939, “the queen of gymnastics” won her first Hungarian title the next year, but later in 1940 was barred from taking part in any sporting activity due to her Jewish background.