You may have never heard the name Agnes Keleti before, but the 103-year-old Hungarian woman lived quite an impressive life. Not only did she survive the Holocaust, but she went on to become a decorated Olympic gymnast and a prime example of perseverance and resilience. As a matter of fact, until her death on Thursday, she was the oldest gold medal winner in the world.
"Agnes Keleti is the greatest gymnast produced by Hungary, but one whose life and career were intertwined with the politics of her country and her religion," begins her biography on the official Olympics website.
Keleti was born Agnes Klein — she would later change her name to sound less Jewish in the wake of World War II — in Budapest in 1921 and began training as a gymnast at the mere age of four years old. She was also a swimmer and an accomplished cellist.
She joined the National Gymnastics Association in 1938, and in 1940, she won her first Hungarian Championship, but because she was Jewish, she was banned from competing in any other competitions afterward and kicked out of her gymnastics club.
While her father and other family members were murdered in German concentration camps, Keleti managed to save her own life by purchasing the identification papers of a non-Jewish girl and marrying an older Hungarian gymnast, Istvan Sarkany. She moved to the Hungarian countryside and worked as a maid. By the end of the war, she spent her days collecting bodies and burying them in graves after the siege of Budapest.
After the war, she wore several hats, laboring as a fur worker, a demonstrator at the Faculty of Gymnastics of the Budapest School for Physical Culture, and a professional cellist at various times. But she didn't miss a beat when it came to gymnastics and went right back to winning championships. In 1948, she would finally get her chance to participate in the Olympic Games, or so she thought. A torn ankle ligament would sideline her until she tried again in 1952. At the age of 31, she finally got her chance in Helsinki, earning a gold, a silver, and two bronze medals.
In 1956, at the age of 35, Keleti's performance at the Melbourne Olympics was even more impressive. She won four gold medals and two silver medals in various individual and team events. During the competition, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, and Keleti sought political asylum in Australia before moving to Israel in 1957. Once in Israel, she worked as a physical education instructor at Tel Aviv University and as a coach for Israel's national gymnastics team for decades.
In 2015, she finally returned to Hungary. And in 2021, just before the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) honored her with a video called "What Agnes Saw."
Ágnes Keleti: 1921 – 2025 ❤️
— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) January 2, 2025
We’ll always remember the hope that was in the five-time Olympic champion’s eyes as she turned 100 years old and witnessed the emergence of a new generation of athletes.#Olympics #Gymnastics pic.twitter.com/MbOIQrYCRY
Upon learning of her death, current IOC President Thomas Bach released the following statement:
Agnes Keleti was the oldest living Olympic Champion and 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. This is truly awe-inspiring. Our thoughts are with her family and her friends.
The New York Times reports that she was always in good physical shape, "doing splits well into her 90s" and enjoyed encouraging young people to take up gymnastics. Keleti died on Thursday from complications of pneumonia. She was just a few days shy of her 104th birthday on January 9. She and her second husband had two sons, Daniel and Rafael.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member