World's longest-living Olympic champion passes away
Lars Foster
Dailysports's expert
Translated by the editors
On January 2, 2025, in Budapest, Hungary, Olympic gymnastics champion Ágnes Keleti passed away at the age of 103. Keleti, a gold medalist at the 1952 and 1956 Olympic Games, set a record as the longest-living Olympic champion and medalist upon turning 100.
According to AFP, Keleti died on Thursday in a Budapest hospital after being hospitalized with pneumonia. She would have turned 104 on January 9.
Keleti survived the Nazi occupation, during which her father and other relatives perished in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp due to their Jewish heritage. In 1956, following the Soviet invasion of Hungary, she fled the country and lived in Israel for decades before returning to Hungary in 2015.
Keleti’s Olympic legacy includes an impressive tally of five gold, three silver, and two bronze medals.
