Sixty-seven Trojans participated in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, representing 26 different nations.(Illustration/©Paris2024)
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Heavy medals: USC’s decorated Olympians
Meet the Trojans who made USC — and their countries — proud at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
This summer, 68 past, current and incoming Trojans competed in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, representing 26 different nations and spanning nine different sports. Of those athletes, 13 medaled, with Trojans bringing home 15 medals in total (Rai Benjamin won two golds and Nicole Yeargin won two bronze medals). Meet the Olympians who made USC proud, and read five things you should know about USC’s history with the Olympics.
- USC is home to more Olympic athletes and more overall medalists than any other U.S. university.
- USC is one of a handful of U.S. schools to have hosted actual Olympic events on its grounds. The swim stadium on the University Park Campus — now the Uytengsu Aquatics Center — hosted swimming, diving and synchronized swimming (now artistic swimming) events during the 1984 Games (though without sponsor McDonald’s name, in keeping with Olympic policy).
- USC’s participation in the Olympics dates to 1904, when Emil Breitkreutz, class of 1906, traveled to St. Louis and brought home a bronze medal in the 800-m run.
- USC is the only school with an Olympic torch in its football stadium. That comes in handy for one of USC’s most popular home-field traditions at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum: the fourth-quarter lighting of the torch.
- A Trojan has won at least one gold medal in every Summer Olympics since 1912. That includes the U.S.-boycotted 1980 Moscow Games, where swimmer Michelle Ford ’84, competing for her native Australia, captured gold in the 800-m freestyle.
SLIDESHOW: USC Olympians who took home medals at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games
