Ágnes Keleti

Ágnes Keleti was born in 1921 in Budapest

Ágnes Klein was born in Budapest in 1921 to a Jewish family. She started gymnastics at age 4 and also studied the cello. She later changed her surname to Keleti.

In 1941 she was expelled from her gymnastics club for being Jewish. During the Holocaust she hid with false papers and worked as a maid in a village. Her father was murdered at Auschwitz, while her mother and sister survived.

After the war she resumed training and won her first Hungarian title in 1946. She won 4 medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and became world champion on the uneven bars in 1954. At the 1956 Melbourne Olympics she won 6 medals, then stayed in Australia and received political asylum.

In 1957 she came to Israel for the Maccabiah Games and stayed. She worked at the Wingate Institute and Tel Aviv University and coached the national gymnastics team. In 1959 she married Robert Biro, and they had 2 sons.

In 2015 she settled again in Budapest. She received the Israel Prize in 2017. She died in Budapest on 2 January 2025 after an illness with pneumonia.