Agnes Keleti, the world’s oldest Olympic champion, has died at the age of 103 it has been announced.
Keleti had been hospitalised in Budapest last week with pneumonia, with the former gymnast reportedly admitted on Christmas Day.
‘We pray for her, she has a great vitality’ her son, Rafael Biro-Keleti told Hungarian media at the time.
Her press official Tamas Roth confirmed to AFP that Keleti had died on Thursday in hospital.
Keleti was one of Hungary’s most successful Olympians, winning 10 medals in gymnastics across the Helsinki 1952 and Melbourne 1956 Olympics.
She claimed the floor title in the Finnish capital, before winning the uneven bars, balance beam, floor and team event four years later.
Keleti had been born as Agnes Klein in Budapest in 1921 and took up gymnastics at the age of four.
She joined the VAC Sports Club, the only Jewish club in Budapest, and went on to claim the national title as a 16-year-old.
Her Olympic debut was delayed due to the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Games due to the Second World War.
Keleti had been expelled from her gymnastics team in 1941 due to her Jewish ancestry.
She assumed a false identity and worked as a maid during the war, with Keleti, her mother and sister surviving the Holocaust with the help of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
Keleti’s father and other relatives, however, died at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
They were among 550,000 Hungarian Jews killed at Auschwitz and other camps.
Keleti qualified for the 1984 Olympics after the war, but was prevented from competing due to an ankle injury.
Her Olympic debut eventually came in 1952 in Helsinki at the age of 31, where she claimed one gold, a silver and two bronze medals.
Keleti became the oldest gymnastics gold medallist 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 post-Olympics after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary during the Games, joining 44 other athletes from the Hungarian delegation in seeking political asylum.
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