Agnes Keleti, the world's oldest Olympic champion, has died at the age of 103, it has been announced.
Keleti had been hospitalized in Budapest last week with pneumonia and the former gymnast was reportedly admitted on Christmas Day.
“We pray for her, she has great vitality,” her son, Rafael Biro-Keleti, told Hungarian media at the time.
His press officer, Tamas Roth, confirmed to AFP that Keleti had died in hospital on Thursday.
Keleti was one of Hungary's most successful Olympians, winning 10 medals in gymnastics at the 1952 Helsinki and 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
She took the floor title in the Finnish capital, before winning the uneven bars, balance beam, floor and team events four years later.
Agnes Keleti, the world's oldest Olympic champion, has died at 103
Keleti was a five-time Olympic gold medalist and earned 10 medals at the Games in total.
He competed in his first Olympic Games at the age of 31 because World War II delayed his debut.
Keleti was born Agnes Klein in Budapest in 1921 and began gymnastics at the age of four.
He joined the VAC Sports Club, the only Jewish club in Budapest, and won the national title when he was 16 years old.
His Olympic debut was delayed due to the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Games due to World War II.
Keleti had been kicked off her gymnastics team in 1941 because of her Jewish ancestry.
She assumed a false identity and worked as a maid during the war, and Keleti, her mother and sister survived the Holocaust with the help of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
Keleti's father and other relatives, however, died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
They were among the 550,000 Hungarian Jews murdered in Auschwitz and other camps.
Keleti qualified for the 1984 Olympics after the war, but was prevented from competing due to an ankle injury.
Keleti, left, was the most successful athlete at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Keleti survived the Holocaust and became one of the most decorated Jewish athletes in history.
His Olympic debut finally occurred in 1952 in Helsinki, at the age of 31, where he won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.
Keleti became the oldest gymnastics gold medalist four years later in Melbourne.
She was the most successful athlete at the Games, winning four gold and two silver medals.
Keleti remained in Australia after the Olympics after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary during the Games, joining 44 other athletes from the Hungarian delegation who requested political asylum.
The Olympic champion moved to Israel in 1957, where she met her husband Robert Biro and had two sons, Daniel and Rafael.
Keleti played a key role in the development of Israeli gymnastics, serving as a coach between 1958 and 1980, while also helping the Italian team prepare for the 1960 Olympic Games.
He also taught physical education at the Orde Wingate Institute in Israel and served as an international gymnastics judge, only deciding to retire at the age of 75.
Keleti was inducted into the International Gymnastics Federation Hall of Fame in 2002.
Keleti became the oldest Olympic champion in history in 2023, surpassing Sandor Tarics
The same year, Keleti published a memoir titled “The Three Lives of an Olympic Champion.”
He returned to Hungary in 2015.
On September 8, 2023, Keleti surpassed water polo player Sandor Tarics as the oldest Olympic champion at 102 years and 241 days.
Keleti was due to celebrate her 104th birthday on January 9.
'Agnes Keleti, five-time Olympic champion gymnast, Athlete of the Nation, the Hungarian athlete with the most Olympic medals and the oldest five-ring gold medalist in the world, died at the age of 103 on Thursday morning. ', said a statement from the Hungarian Olympic Committee.
'Agnes Keleti is, among other people, the deceased of the Hungarian Olympic Committee. The MOB expresses its condolences to the family and the gymnastics community.'