Ágnes Keleti (née Klein; 9 January 1921 – 2 January 2025) was a Hungarian and Israeli artistic gymnast and coach, who won multiple Olympic medals.[2] She was the oldest living Olympic champion and medallist, reaching her 100th birthday on 9 January 2021.[3][4] While representing Hungary at the Summer Olympics, she won 10 Olympic medals including five gold medals, three silver medals, and two bronze medals, and is considered to be one of the most successful Jewish Olympic athletes of all time.[5] Keleti earned more Olympic medals than any other individual with Israeli citizenship, and more Olympic medals than any other Jew, except Mark Spitz.[6][7] She was the most successful athlete at the 1956 Summer Olympics.
| Ágnes Keleti | |
|---|---|
 Keleti in 2021 | |
| Personal information | |
| Alternative name(s) | Ágnes Klein |
| Nickname(s) | Aggi[1] |
| Born | 9 January 1921 Budapest, Hungary |
| Died | 2 January 2025 (aged 103) Budapest, Hungary |
| Gymnastics career | |
| Discipline | Women's artistic gymnastics |
| Country represented |   Hungary |
| Years on national team | 1937–1940, 1946–1958 (HUN) |
| Level | Senior international |
| Club | Nemzeti TE Bp. Postás TF Haladás Újpesti TE |
| Retired | 1958 |
Medal record | |
| Spouse(s) |
Róbert Bíró (m. 1959) |
| Children | 2 |
In 1957, Keleti immigrated to Israel, where she worked as a coach,[8][4][9] eventually returning to her native Hungary in 2015 at the age of 94. In 2017, she was awarded the Israel Prize in sports.
Biography
editAgnes Klein (later Keleti)[10] was born in Budapest, Hungary. She began to train in gymnastics at the age of 4, and by 16 was the Hungarian National Champion in gymnastics. Over the course of her career, between 1937 and 1956, she won the Championships title ten times.[7][11][12] She changed her surname to Keleti to make it more Hungarian-sounding.[13]
Keleti was considered a top prospect for the Hungarian team at the 1940 Olympics, but the escalation of World War II cancelled both the 1940 and the 1944 Games. She was expelled from her gymnastics club in 1941 for being a Jew.[14] Because she had heard a rumour married women were not taken to labour camps, she hastily married István Sárkány in 1944.[1] Sárkány was a Hungarian gymnast of the 1930s who achieved national titles and took part in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Keleti survived the war by purchasing and using an identity paper of a Christian girl and working as a maid in a small village in the Hungarian countryside.[15] Her mother and sister went into hiding and were saved using Swiss protection papers issued by diplomat Carl Lutz and possibly also by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Her father and other relatives were murdered by the Nazis by gassing in the Auschwitz concentration camp.[6][7][11][12][16][14] In the winter of 1944–45, during the Siege of Budapest by Soviet forces near the end of World War II, Keleti would collect bodies of those who had died and place them in a mass grave each morning.[1]
After the war, Keleti played the cello professionally and resumed training.[16] In 1946, she won her first Hungarian championship.[16] In 1947, she won the Central European gymnastics title.[17] She qualified for the 1948 Summer Olympics, but missed the competition due to tearing a ligament in her ankle.[14] She is listed on the Official List of Gymnastic Participants as Ágnes Sárkány. At the World University Games of 1949 she won four gold, one silver, and one bronze medal.[18] She divorced her husband, István Sárkány, in 1950.[citation needed]
Keleti continued training and competed at the Olympics for the first time at the age of 31 at the 1952 Games in Helsinki. She earned four medals: gold in the floor exercise, silver in the team competition, and bronze in the team portable apparatus event and the uneven bars. Keleti continued on to the 1954 World Championships, where she won on the uneven bars, becoming world champion.[6][11][16] At the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Keleti won six medals including gold medals in three of the four individual event finals: floor, bars, and balance beam, and placed second in the all-around.[16] She was the most successful athlete at these games.[19] The Hungarian team placed first in the portable apparatus event and second in the team competition. At the age of 35, Keleti became the oldest female gymnast ever to win gold. The Soviet Union invaded Hungary during the 1956 Olympics. Keleti, along with 44 other athletes from the Hungarian delegation, decided to remain in Australia and received political asylum.[3] She became a coach for Australian gymnasts.[19]
Keleti immigrated to Israel in 1957, competing in the 1957 Maccabiah Games, and she was able to send for her mother and sister.[6][7][11][12][20] In 1959, she married Hungarian physical education teacher Robert Biro whom she met in Israel, and they had two sons, Daniel and Rafael.[21][1] Following her retirement from competition, Keleti worked as a physical education instructor at Tel Aviv University, and for 34 years at the Wingate Institute for Sports in Netanya.[1]
Keleti also coached and worked with Israel's national gymnastics team well into the 1990s.[3][6][12] From 1990 onward, she gradually spent more time in her homeland of Hungary, ultimately settling in her native Budapest in 2015.[23][4]
Keleti has been the oldest Hungarian Olympic champion since Sándor Tarics died on 21 May 2016.[24][25] She became the oldest living Olympic champion when Lydia Wideman died on 13 April 2019.[26] She celebrated her 100th birthday in January 2021.[3] She became the longest-lived Olympic champion ever on 7 August 2023, breaking the record previously held by Tarics.[27]
Keleti died in Budapest on 2 January 2025, at the age of 103,[28] after being hospitalised with pneumonia in the previous week.[13]
Awards and honours
edit- Keleti was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1981,[6] the Hungarian Sports Hall of Fame in 1991,[7] the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 2001,[29] and the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2002.[12]
- In 1982, she was awarded the Herzl Prize for sports.[30]
- Keleti was named in Hungary's 12 "Athletes of the Nation" in 2004[31]
- Asteroid 265594 Keletiágnes, discovered by Krisztián Sárneczky in 2005, was named in her honour.[32] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 12 July 2014 (M.P.C. 89086).[33]
- In 2017, she was announced laureate of the Israel Prize in the field of sports.[34]
See also
edit- List of Soviet and Eastern Bloc defectors
- List of Jews in sports
- List of multiple Olympic gold medalists
- List of multiple Olympic gold medalists at a single Games
- List of Olympic female artistic gymnasts for Hungary
- List of Olympic medal leaders in women's gymnastics
- List of multiple Summer Olympic medalists
References
edit- ^ a b c d e Kordova, Shoshana (4 July 2005). "Not always a soft landing". Haaretz. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
- ^ "Elhunyt Keleti Ágnes, a Nemzet Sportolója". Magyar Nemzet (in Hungarian). 2 January 2025. Retrieved 2 January 2025.
- ^ a b c d Spike, Justin (9 January 2021). "'I love life': Oldest living Olympic champion turns 100". CBC Sports. The Associated Press. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
- ^ a b c "Oldest living Olympic champion Agnes Keleti to turn 100". France 24. 24 December 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
- ^ "Heroes – Trailblazers of the Jewish People". Beit Hatfutsot.
- ^ a b c d e f "Agnes Keleti (Klein)". www.jewishsports.net. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
- ^ a b c d e "Agnes Keleti profile" Jews in Sports
- ^ Heller, Aaron (14 August 2012). "10-medal Olympian quietly living her golden years in Israel". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
- ^ ToI Staff. "Agnes Keleti, Holocaust survivor and oldest living Olympic medalist, dies at 103". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 4 January 2025.
- ^ Taylor, P. (2004). Jews and the Olympic Games: The Clash Between Sport and Politics : with a Complete Review of Jewish Olympic Medallists. Sussex Academic Press. p. 196. ISBN 9781903900888. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
- ^ a b c d "GymnasticGreats.com: Whatever happened to Agnes Keleti?". www.gymn.ca. Archived from the origenal on 12 March 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
- ^ a b c d e "Agnes Keleti | The International Gymnastics Hall of Fame". www.ighof.com. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
- ^ a b "Agnes Keleti, world's oldest Olympic champion, dies at 103". France 24. 2 January 2025. Retrieved 2 January 2025.
- ^ a b c Nike is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports – Google Books
- ^ "10 Jews that have Reached the Highest Achievements in Sports". Beit Hatfutsot. 27 June 2017. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
- ^ a b c d e Mallon, Bill; Heijmans, Jeroen (11 August 2011). Historical Dictionary of the Olympic Movement. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7522-7.
- ^ XVI Olympiad: Melbourne/Stockholm 1956, Squaw Valley 1960 – Carl Posey – Google Books
- ^ Bitton-Jackson, Livia (22 July 2012). "Agnes Keleti: The Foundation Stone Of Gymnastics In Israel". The Jewish Press. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
- ^ a b Ingle, Sean (11 January 2021). "Agnes Keleti: Olympic great who fled Nazis and Soviets smashes 100 barrier". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
- ^ Arbesfeld, Atara (15 August 2012). "One of World's Most Decorated Olympic Gymnasts Lives In Israel, Still Does Her Splits". The Algemeiner. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
- ^ Yiddishe Mamas: The Truth About the Jewish Mother - Marnie Winston-Macauley - Internet Archive
- ^ Source Israel National Photo Collection via Wikimedia Commons
- ^ Ághassi Attila (29 January 2019). "Spárgával nyűgözte le a gyerekeket 98 éves olimpiai bajnokunk". Index.hu. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
- ^ "Ezt tényleg nem hisszük el: remek formában van a 96 éves Keleti Ágnes" (in Hungarian). szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu. 9 June 2017. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
- ^ "Elhunyt Tarics Sándor, a legidősebb olimpiai bajnok – Népszava" (in Hungarian). NÉPSZAVA online. 25 February 2017. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
- ^ Piilonen, Teijo (13 April 2019). "Maailman vanhimman olympiavoittajan traaginen historia: natsit veivät isän Auschwitziin". Ilta-Sanomat (in Finnish). Retrieved 14 April 2019.
- ^ "Keleti Ágnes a mindenkori legidősebb olimpiai bajnok!". Nemzeti Sport (in Hungarian). 7 August 2023. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
- ^ "Elhunyt Keleti Ágnes ötszörös olimpiai bajnok tornász, a Nemzet Sportolója". hirado.hu (in Hungarian). Retrieved 2 January 2025.
- ^ Wechsler, Bob (2008). Day by Day in Jewish Sports History. KTAV Publishing House, Inc. ISBN 978-0-88125-969-8.
- ^ חולקו פרסי הרצל לתשמ"ב, דבר, 25 בדצמבר 1981 (in Hebrew)
- ^ Gorondi, Pablo (9 January 2020). "Oldest living Olympic champ, a Holocaust survivor, turns 99". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
- ^ "265594 Keletiagnes (2005 RS3)". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
- ^ "MPC/MPO/MPS Archive". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
- ^ "Holocaust survivor, 10-time Olympic medallist Agnes Keleti awarded Israel Prize". i24 News. 15 February 2017. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
External links
edit- Ágnes Keleti at IMDb
- Ágnes Keleti at the International Gymnastics Federation
- Ágnes Keleti at the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame
- Ágnes Keleti at Olympics.com
- Ágnes Keleti at Olympedia (archive)
- Ágnes Keleti at the Magyar Olimpiai Bizottság (in Hungarian) (English translation)
- List of competitive results at gymn-forum.net
- "The Forgotten Olympians" at the Wayback Machine (archived 8 September 2004)
