Two-time Olympic champion Hungarian Margit Korondi dies in Las Vegas

Two-time Olympic champion Hungarian gymnast Margit Korondi has died at the age of 88, her former teammate Alice Kertész told the Hungarian Olympic Committee (MOB) in agreement with the family of the deceased.

Who was Margit Korondi?

Born on 24 June 1932 in Celje (then Yugoslavia; today Slovenia), Korondi rose through Hungary’s post-war gymnastics system and competed for Vasas in Budapest. She became a national-team gymnast in the early 1950s and peaked on the Olympic stage at Helsinki in 1952.

Korondi is often grouped with Hungary’s great 1950s gymnastics generation, alongside names that shaped the country’s global reputation in women’s artistic gymnastics, the Hungarian official Olympic (MOB) site said.

What did she win at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics?

Helsinki was Korondi’s defining moment. She captured gold on uneven bars, and added medals across both individual and team events. In total, she left the 1952 Games with six Olympic medals (1 gold, 1 silver, 4 bronze), an exceptional haul by any era’s standards.

Her uneven bars title also made her one of the headline Hungarian winners of those Games.

Why is she called a “two-time Olympic champion”?

In standard sports usage, “Olympic champion” means Olympic gold medallist. Korondi earned that label twice:

• 1952 (Helsinki): uneven bars gold
• 1956 (Melbourne): team gold (portable apparatus / “hand apparatus team” event in period terminology)

Across Helsinki and Melbourne, her overall Olympic tally is listed as 2 gold, 2 silver, 4 bronze.

What happened between the two Olympics?

After Helsinki, Korondi’s career was interrupted by injury—serious enough that it threatened her continuation and kept her away from some major competitions. She eventually returned to Olympic level and competed again at Melbourne 1956, where she added two more medals to her record.

What was her life like after 1956?

Following the 1956 Olympics and the upheaval of that period, Korondi emigrated to the United States and continued working in sport and fitness, including coaching and teaching. Hungarian gymnastics sources also note her long American chapter, including work connected to coaching and physical education.

Her legacy has been preserved in official Olympic/statistical records and by gymnastics institutions that highlight her as one of Hungary’s most successful Olympians in the sport.

Where and when did Margit Korondi die?

Korondi died on Sunday morning, 6 March 2022. The Hungarian Olympic Committee (MOB) announced her death in April 2022 and reported that she died on 6 March; MOB’s database entry lists Las Vegas, Nevada as the place of death.

International gymnastics reporting and athlete databases likewise recorded her death on 6 March 2022, commonly repeating Las Vegas as the location.

A family correction shared with Daily News Hungary

Daily News Hungary has also received a family clarification from Korondi’s daughter disputing key details that appeared in some early reports. In her message, the daughter says Korondi died in California, where she had been living with her daughter since 2018, and that she was not suffering from an illness—she “went to sleep and never woke up” on the morning of Sunday, March 6, 2022.

Because official notices and media reports circulated different versions (including references to Las Vegas and illness), this family statement is important context for readers and will be treated as a correction of those earlier claims.

Margit Korondi’s legacy in one sentence

For many Hungarians, Korondi remains the gymnast who symbolised a golden era: a two-time Olympic champion whose Helsinki 1952 medal haul still stands among the most remarkable Olympic performances by a Hungarian woman gymnast.

FAQ Margit Korondi

Source: MTI