‘I appreciate life’: Oldest living Olympic winner turns 100

BUDAPEST, Hungary

For Agnes Keleti, the oldest dwelling Olympic winner, the fondest memory of her amazing 100 several years is basically that she has lived through it all.

The Holocaust survivor and winner of 10 Olympic medals in gymnastics — together with 5 golds — celebrates her 100th birthday on Saturday in her indigenous Budapest, punctuating a daily life of achievement, experience, tragedy and perseverance which, she claims, passed by in a flash.

“These 100 yrs felt to me like 60,” she said at a celebration in Budapest on the eve of her birthday.

Leafing by a copy of a new ebook about her lifestyle — “The Queen of Gymnastics: 100 A long time of Agnes Keleti” — her trademark modesty was on whole display.

“‘The queen of gymnastics,’” she claimed, switching to English. And in Hungarian: “That’s an exaggeration.”

Keleti, who was born Agnes Klein in 1921, had her illustrious vocation interrupted by Entire world War II and the subsequent cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics. Forced off her gymnastics workforce in 1941 due to the fact of her Jewish ancestry, Keleti went into hiding in the Hungarian countryside in which she survived the Holocaust by assuming a phony id and performing as a maid.

Her mother and sister survived the war with the help of famed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, but her father and other relations perished at Auschwitz, among the the far more than 50 % a million Hungarian Jews killed in Nazi loss of life camps and by Hungarian Nazi collaborators.

Resuming her occupation after the war, Keleti was established to compete at the 1948 London Olympics but a final-minute ankle injury dashed her hopes. 4 years later on, she built her Olympic debut at the 1952 Helsinki Online games at the age of 31, successful a gold medal in the ground exercise as perfectly as a silver and two bronzes.

Despite her achievements — with six medals she was the most prosperous athlete at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and she is identified as a person of the most effective Jewish Olympic athletes of all time — the however-vivacious Keleti explained she most values her overall health and the simple actuality that she has lived.

“I enjoy daily life,” she stated. “Health is the essence. Without it, there is absolutely nothing.”

In an job interview with The Related Press previous calendar year, Keleti claimed the experiences she acquired whilst touring the environment ended up far more cherished to her than her 10 Olympic medals.

“I cherished gymnastics for the reason that it was feasible to travel for free of charge,” she explained.

These travels would in the long run consequence in a almost 60-12 months absence from her native Hungary. At the age of 35, while she was starting to be the oldest gold medalist in gymnastics history in Melbourne, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary adhering to an unsuccessful anti-Soviet uprising. Keleti remained in Australia and sought political asylum. She then immigrated to Israel the adhering to yr and labored as a coach and coached the Israeli Olympic gymnastics staff until eventually the 1990s.

After leaving Hungary for the Olympics in 1956, she visited her native place only when prior to returning to Budapest in 2015.

Keleti was awarded the Israel Prize in 2017 — deemed that country’s best cultural honor — and is the receiver of several other prestigious awards, which include becoming named one of Hungary’s “Athletes of the Nation” in 2004. She holds personal gold medals in the floor work out, equilibrium beam and uneven bars.

Currently, Keleti follows her doctor’s modern advice to stay away from executing full leg splits, and her close to-perpetual smile and infectious laughter are reminders that even in instances of great hardship, there remains the immutable possible for perseverance and the joy of lifetime.

“I reside very well, and it’s terrific that I’m nevertheless wholesome,” Keleti claimed. “And I appreciate life.”