The ballet legend Alicia Alonso, who won world fame in the 1940s and later ran the Cuban National Ballet Foundation for decades, died on Thursday at the age of 98, state media reported.

"Alicia Alonso left and left a huge void but she also left a huge legacy," President Miguel Diaz Canel said in a tweet on Twitter.

Alonso is one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century and has used her stardom to expand her ballet fame in her country and form the world's largest ballet school.