Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti, the world’s oldest living Olympic champion as well as a Holocaust survivor, is still showing off as she looks forward to turning 100 next month.
“I feel good, but I don’t look in the mirror, that’s my trick. Then I remain young,” Keleti said in Budapest last month.
A five-time Olympic champion, Keleti, who celebrates her birthday on Jan. 9, is also Hungary’s most successful gymnast, and one of the most decorated Jewish athletes.
Photo: AFP
While she has dementia that affects her short-term memory, her feisty spirit remains intact.
Moving in a sprightly manner around her apartment where both her life mementoes and Olympic medals are on display, she joked about not being allowed to perform full-leg splits anymore.
“I’m told by my caretaker that it’s not good for me at this age,” she laughed, while leafing through a new book, The Queen of Gymnastics, 100 years of Agnes Keleti, published to mark her centenary birthday.
Keleti’s life story, including Olympic glory and Holocaust escape, reads like a gripping Hollywood film script.
Born in 1921, she won 10 gymnastics medals in all, most won after she turned 30 and was competing against gymnasts half her age, including five golds in Helsinki in 1952 and Melbourne in 1956.
“I did sport not because it felt good, but to see the world,” Keleti said in a 2016 interview.
Called up to the national team in 1939, she won her first Hungarian title the next year, but in 1940 was barred from taking part in any sporting activity due to her Jewish background.
After the Nazi German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, she escaped deportation to a death camp by getting false documents and assuming the identity of a maid girl Piroska Juhasz.
“I stayed alive thanks to Piroska, with whom I swapped not only clothes and papers, but also the way she talked,” said Keleti, who kept fit while hiding in the countryside by running routinely.
Keleti’s father and several members of her family were killed in Auschwitz, while her mother and brother were rescued thanks to the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
Keleti emigrated to Australia in 1957 a year after Hungary’s failed anti-Soviet uprising, before settling in Israel where she married a Hungarian sports teacher, Robert Biro, in 1959, with whom she later had two children.
After she retired, she worked as a physical education teacher, and became head coach of the Israeli national gymnastics team.
She was only able to return home to then-communist Hungary — where she has lived since 2015 — for the World Athletics Championships in 1983.
“It was worth doing something well in life, considering the attention I have received, I get the shivers when I see all the articles written about me,” Keleti said.
The NHL postponed the Los Angeles Kings’ home game against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday with several massive wildfires burning across the greater Los Angeles area. The Kings and Flames were scheduled to play on Wednesday night at the Kings’ downtown arena. The NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers were scheduled to host the Charlotte Hornets in the same arena last night. “Our hearts are with our entire Los Angeles community,” the Kings said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard working first responders who are diligently working to contain the fire and protect our community. We appreciate the league’s support in keeping our
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
TWO IN A WEEK: Despite an undefeated start to the year playing alongside Jiang Xinyu of China, Wu Fang-hsien is to play the Australian Open with a Russian partner Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien yesterday triumphed at the Hobart International, winning the women’s doubles title at the US$275,094 outdoor hard-court tournament, while McCartney Kessler lifted the trophy in the women’s singles. Fourth-ranked Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China took 1 hour, 15 minutes to defeat Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Fanny Stollar of Hungary, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, their second title in a week. Wu and Jiang on Sunday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, beating Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US. Their winning ways continued in Australia as they stretched
EL CLASSICO: La Liga champions Real Madrid would face Barcelona in the Super Cup final tomorrow. Barça secured their final spot after a 2-0 win over Bilbao on Wednesday Real Madrid would chase a record-equaling 14th Spanish Super Cup title in the final against Barcelona after second-half goals by Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo helped them to a 3-0 win over Mallorca in the semi-finals on Thursday. England midfielder Bellingham broke the deadlock after the hour mark with a low shot into the middle of the goal before Mallorca defender Martin Valjent’s own goal doubled the lead in stoppage time followed by a Rodrygo strike from close range. Spanish champions Real are to play Barcelona for the trophy tomorrow after goals by Gavi and Lamine Yamal earned Barça a 2-0 win over
RSS