MADRID, 2 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed this Thursday the death of former Hungarian gymnast Ágnes Keleti at the age of 103, after being admitted to a hospital in critical condition since Christmas Day due to pneumonia.
Winner of 10 Olympic medals and the oldest Games champion, Keleti was a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. “He lived a full life, surviving the horrors of his time and keeping alive the hope of achieving the Olympic dream,” the IOC noted on its website.
Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, stressed that Keleti had died “a week before his 104th birthday.” “She will forever be remembered for her inspiring story. She demonstrated the power of strong determination and courage to overcome tragedy when, after surviving the Holocaust, she won 10 Olympic medals, five of them gold. It is truly amazing. Ours “My thoughts are with his family and friends,” Bach said.
National champion in 1937 at the age of 16, the outbreak of World War II deprived Keleti of what would have been her first two Olympic Games. Of Jewish roots, she was forced to adopt a false identity to escape terror. “His mother and sister also survived, but his father and other relatives were murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp,” the IOC summarized in its statement.
“A ligament injury would prevent him from competing in London 1948, so his debut would have to wait until the 1952 Helsinki Games, at the age of 31. Of course, with a good haul: a gold medal, one silver and two bronze “, praised the same IOC press release.
The consecration of the former Hungarian gymnast occurred during the 1956 Melbourne Games, where she won four gold medals and two silver medals to become the most successful athlete of that event, also cementing her legend in the artistic category.