USC’s amazing Olympic streak continues as Katinka Hosszu wins gold
Former USC great Katinka Hosszu won her first career Olympic medal in smashing fashion, shattering the world record in the 400-meter individual medley (IM) on Saturday at the Rio Olympics and extending USC’s amazing streak of having a Trojan win a gold medal at every Summer Games since 1912.
Housszu, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2012, continued to craft what might be one of the top stories of the 2016 Olympics, winning her second gold medal on Monday night, this time in the 100-meter backstroke, while also advancing to the 200-meter individual medley final an hour later. She converted that qualifier into gold on Tuesday night with an Olympic record time of 2 minutes, 6.58 seconds
The USC Dornsife alumna is only the sixth Trojan to win at least three golds in one Olympic Games and just the second to win them in individual events. She joins swimmers John Naber (four, 1976), Murray Rose (three, 1956), Janet Evans (three, 1988) and Lenny Krayzelburg (three, 2000), and sprinter Allyson Felix (three, 2012) as the only Trojans to win three golds in one Olympiad.
The Hungarian great will have one more crack at a medal in the 200-meter backstroke, which starts with preliminary races on Thursday. Only Naber has won four golds in one Olympics in USC history.
Dubbed the Iron Lady due to her ability to swim multiple events in a single session, Housszu had to come from behind to win Monday’s gold. She was sixth at 50 meters with a time of 28.84 seconds but caught up to the field with 25 meters to go and raced home to win in 58.45 seconds.
She dominated Saturday’s 400-meter IM final with a time of 4 minutes, 26.36 seconds, lowering the previous world record by 2.07 seconds and winning by almost five seconds. She was fourth in the event in 2012 and 12th in 2008.
Former Trojan Amanda Weir, who had a brief tenure at USC, earned a silver in Monday’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay. The veteran Weir, in her third Olympics, helped the U.S. qualify for the finals with her preliminary swim and picked up a silver thanks to the Americans’ second-place finish in the final.
To follow the 44 Trojan Olympians in Rio — most of any U.S. university — visit the USC Athletics Olympic website.