In a statement posted on its website, the Hungarian Olympic Committee (HOC) announced that Agnes Keleti died on Thursday, a week before her 104th birthday.
“These 100 years felt like 60 years to me,” Keleti told The Associated Press on the eve of his 100th birthday in 2021.
“I live well. And I love life. It’s great that I’m still healthy.”
Banned and persecuted for being Jewish
Keleti was born Agnes Klein to a Jewish family on January 9, 1921 in Budapest. Keleti had a promising start in gymnastics, winning her first Hungarian Championships in 1940. However, his career came to a halt after he was banned later that year. From all sporting activities due to being Jewish.
According to the HOC, Keleti escaped deportation to the Nazi death camps, where hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were killed, by hiding in a village south of Budapest, using false identity cards. Her father and many of her relatives died in the Auschwitz death camp.
Late, successful Olympic career
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Emigrate to Israel, return to Budapest
The HOC said her total of 10 Olympic medals, including five golds, makes her the second most successful Hungarian athlete of all time.
The Olympic Games were scheduled to take place following the Soviet Union’s bloody crackdown on the anti-communist uprising in Budapest, so Keleti decided not to return to Hungary. A year later, she moved to Israel.
However, after the fall of communism in 1990, Keleti frequently visited Hungary and eventually returned to spend her final years in Budapest.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery
