Budapest (AFP)

The oldest living Olympic champion in the world, Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti, will celebrate her hundredth birthday on Saturday in her native country, after a life of exodus marked by the Shoah and the glory of the podiums.

"I feel good: the thing is, you shouldn't look at yourself in the mirror," quipped the old lady born on January 9, 1921 when receiving AFP, in her Budapest apartment last November.

"That's how I stayed young," explained this five-time gold medalist with an exceptional career in a playful tone, sometimes running her hand through beautiful gray hair.

Although her old age affects her short-term memory, Agnes Keleti remains quick-witted and moves with a confident step, sketching a choreography, amid the photos and memories brought back from many trips.

"They don't let me do the splits anymore," she laughs in her bright red floral blouse.

"My caregiver thinks it's too much to ask at my old age," she said confidentially, between two dedications written with application.

She proudly browses a new book, published on the occasion of her 100th birthday, as her life story reads like a film script.

- False papers -

Agnes Keleti won ten medals in gymnastics, most after reaching the age of 30 against teenage competitors, including five Olympic gold medals in Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956).

"I played sports not because it made me feel good but to see the world," she told AFP in 2016.

Called up to the national team in 1939, the queen of chains won her first Hungarian title the following year, but was quickly banned from all sporting activity due to her Jewish origins.

After Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944, she escaped deportation to a death camp by obtaining false documents and assuming the identity of a young Christian housekeeper, Piroska Juhasz .

"I stayed alive thanks to Piroska with whom I exchanged clothes and papers while imitating the way she spoke," said Agnes Keleti, who regularly ran to keep fit in the countryside where she was hiding.

- Australia then Israel -

His father and several members of his family were killed at Auschwitz, while his mother and brother were saved thanks to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

Agnes Keleti emigrated to Australia in 1957, a year after the failure of the Hungarian anti-Soviet uprising, before settling in Israel where she married a Hungarian sports teacher, Robert Biro, with whom she had two children.

After retiring from sports, she worked as a physical education teacher and coached the Israeli national team.

It was not until 1983, for the World Athletics Championships, that she returned for the first time to Hungary, then communist.

She will settle there in 2015.

"It was worth doing something good in life for the attention I received. I get chills when I see all the articles written about me," she hisses mischievously.

© 2021 AFP