World’s Oldest Olympic Champion, Agnes Keleti, dies at 103

Agnes Keleti, the world’s oldest living Olympic gold medalist, has died at age 103. Keleti, a Hungarian gymnast, did not compete in the Olympics until she was 31 in 1956 due to numerous circumstances. The Olympic legend died in a hospital after being admitted with pneumonia on Christmas day.

She survived the Holocaust using false identification. Keleti went on to win the most medals of any individual athlete at the 1956 Melbourne Games and in 1957, she fled to Israel, until returning to Budapest in 2015.

After her death on Thursday, January 2, 2025, the International Olympic Committee put out a statement saying “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.”

Ágnes Keleti: 1921 – 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

— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) January 2, 2025

Agnes Keleti was the oldest female gymnast to win Olympic Gold

At 31 years old, Agnes Keleti remains the oldest female gymnast to win Olympic gold. But her collection includes 10 medals, 5 golds, 3 silvers, and 2 bronzes. This makes Keleti the most successful Hungarian athlete of all time, and one of the most successful Jewish Olympians ever.

Keleti was born to a Jewish family on January 9, 1921, and started practicing gymnastics when she was a child. She won her first national gymnastics championship at age 16.

She was a favorite to win her first Olympic medal in 1940, seen as a serious contender for the 1940 Tokyo Games. World War II led to the cancellation of this edition of the games. Then the Nazis expelled her, alongside the other so-called “non-Aryans”, from Budapest in 1941.

Agnes, her mother Rosza, and her sister Vera survived the war in the Hungarian countryside, but many of her relatives, including her father Ferenc Klein, died in Auschwitz. 

Keleti was unable to compete in the 1944 and 1948 games

The 1944 Olympics were also canceled, which meant that Keleti could now aim for the 1948 games in London. Despite qualifying for the event, she was unable to participate after tearing an ankle ligament.

Despite the delay, Keleti made her Olympic debut at the 1952 Helsinki Games, aged 31. She was already past the age of retirement at this time for most gymnasts and still won the gold medal in the floor exercise, silver in a team competition, and two bronze medals.

At age 35, Agnes Keleti would compete at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, going head to head against Larisa Latynina from the USSR, who is now one of the most decorated female athletes of all time and came up on top. She won Olympic gold in the beam, floor exercise, uneven bars, and the team’s portable apparatus. These victories made her the most successful athlete at the Melbourne Games.