WARSAW: Former Olympic long jump champion Elzbieta Krzesinska, winner of gold at the 1956 Melbourne Games, has died at the age of 81 years, the Polish Athletics Federation announced on Tuesday.

Born in Warsaw, Krzesinska set a world record in Budapest in 1956 with a jump of 6.35m. She took the Olympic gold in Melbourne that year with the same mark.

Four years later at the Rome Olympics she took silver behind Soviet athlete Vera Krepkina with a jump of 6.27 m.

She also won two European Championships medals.

A dentist by profession, Krzesinska lived in the US for two decades before returning to her native Poland in 2001.