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Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti, the world’s oldest dwelling Olympic champion in addition to a Holocaust survivor, continues to be displaying off as she seems to be ahead to turning 100 subsequent month. “I feel good, but I don’t look in the mirror, that’s my trick! Then I remain young!” Keleti informed AFP in Budapest final month. A five-times Olympic champion, Keleti, who celebrates her birthday January 9, can also be Hungary’s most profitable gymnast, and some of the embellished Jewish athletes in historical past. While she now has dementia that impacts her short-term reminiscence, her feisty spirit stays intact. Moving in a sprightly method round her house the place each her life mementoes and Olympic medals are on show, she joked about not being let carry out the full-leg splits anymore.
“I’m told by my caretaker that it’s not good for me at this age,” she laughed, whereas leafing via a brand new guide “The Queen of Gymnastics, 100 years of Agnes Keleti” revealed to mark her centenary birthday.
Keleti’s life story, together with Olympic glory and Holocaust escape, reads like a gripping Hollywood movie script.
Born in 1921, she gained 10 gymnastics medals in all, most gained after she turned 30 and was competing in opposition to gymnasts half her age, together with 5 golds in Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956).
“I did sport not because it felt good but to see the world,” Keleti informed AFP in a 2016 interview.
Called as much as the nationwide staff in 1939, she gained her first Hungarian title the following yr, however later in 1940 was barred from participating in any sporting exercise because of her Jewish background.
After the Nazi German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, she escaped deportation to a demise camp by getting false paperwork and assuming the id of a maid woman Piroska Juhasz.
“I stayed alive thanks to Piroska with whom I swapped not only clothes and papers, but also the way she talked,” stated Keleti, who stored match whereas hiding within the countryside by common operating.
Keleti’s father and several other members of her household had been killed in Auschwitz, whereas her mom and brother had been rescued due to the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
Keleti emigrated to Australia in 1957 a yr after Hungary’s failed anti-Soviet rebellion, earlier than settling in Israel the place she married a Hungarian sports activities trainer Robert Biro in 1959, with whom she later had two youngsters.
After she retired from competitors, she labored as a bodily training trainer, and have become head coach of the Israeli nationwide gymnastics staff.
Promoted
She was solely in a position to return residence to then-communist Hungary — the place 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 says.
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