Oldest Olympic Champion dies 2 Jan 2025 – Agnes KELETI
Ágnes Keleti (née Klein; 9 January 1921 – 2 January 2025) was a Hungarian and Israeli artistic gymnast and coach who won multiple Olympic medals. She was the oldest living Olympic champion and medallist, reaching her 100th birthday on 9 January 2021. While representing Hungary at the Summer Olympics, she won 10 Olympic medals including five gold medals, three silver medals, and two bronze medals, and is considered to be one of the most successful Jewish Olympic athletes of all time. She was the most successful athlete at the 1956 Summer Olympics. In 1957, Keleti immigrated to Israel, where she worked as a coach, eventually returning to her native Hungary in 2015 at the age of 94. In 2017, she was awarded the Israel Prize in sports.
Agnes Keleti was born in Budapest, Hungary. She began to train in gymnastics at the age of 4, and by 16 was the Hungarian National Champion in gymnastics. Over the course of her career, between 1937 and 1956, she won the Championships title ten times.[7][11][12] She changed her surname to Keleti to make it more Hungarian-sounding. Having survived the Holocaust, after the WWII she continued in achieving 5 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze Olympic medals at the 1952 and 1956 Olympic Games (Helsinki and Melbourne), becoming one of the most decorated Olympic athletes of all times. At the age of 35, Keleti became the oldest female gymnast ever to win gold. The Soviet Union invaded Hungary during the 1956 Olympics. Keleti, along with 44 other athletes from the Hungarian delegation, decided to remain in Australia and received political asylum. She became a coach for Australian gymnasts.
Keleti has been the oldest Hungarian Olympic champion since Sándor Tarics died on 21 May 2016. She became the oldest living Olympic champion when Lydia Wideman died on 13 April 2019. She celebrated her 100th birthday in January 2021. She became the longest-lived Olympic champion ever on 7 August 2023, breaking the record previously held by Tarics.
Keleti died in Budapest on 2 January 2025, at the age of 103, a week before her 104th birthday, after being hospitalised with pneumonia in the previous week.
The life of Agnes Keleti symbolises the turbulent history of Europe of the 20th century and EMCA humbly commemorates the exceptional life and accomplishments of her sport career in the most respectful manner.
Agnes Keleti performing the splits in 1949. Photograph: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/Facebook