Five Times Hungarian Olympic Champion Turns 100

Five times Olympic champion gymnast Ágnes Keleti, currently the oldest living Olympic medalist, has turned 100 years old this Saturday.

Ágnes Keleti won her first Olympic title in floor exercise in Helsinki in 1952 when she also earned a silver and two bronze medals. Four years later in Melbourne, she defended her individual title in floor exercise in addition to taking gold on uneven bars, on balanced beam and as member of the Hungarian portable apparatus team. In 1956, she won two silver medals, as well. She also has three world championship titles (Rome, 1954)

On her100th birthday, she received congratulations from the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach who sent a necklace decorated with the five Olympic rings as well as from the leaders of the Hungarian Olympic Committee who visited her this Saturday and from the Hungarian president and the prime minister.

The President of the International Fair Play Committee, Jenő Kamuti, handed over a lifetime achivement award of the Committee to Ágnes Keleti.

Earlier in the week, young athletes at the gymnastics section of the sports club UTE (the legal successor of Ágnes Keleti's one-time club Újpest Dózsa) greeted her in a video message (due to the coronavirus epidemic) and the club announced that its recently renovated gymnasium would be named after her.

Club director István Őze said Ágnes Keleti agreed that the facility would bear her name. "She was very happy, touched, and honored. Once the epidemic is over, we will have a nice inauguration ceremony and I hope she will attend, in equally good health, as she is now."
The gold medalist of the 2012 London Olympics, UTE gymnast Krisztián Berki stated that "heroes and legends are among us, Aunt Ági is still active here. I really like her cheerfulness and view on life, and it's a special pleasure for me to come from the same sport. I know how hard it was for me to win one of my Olympic gold, but she has five. I can't really gauge with common sense how much work it involved at that time."