Women of Troy dominate All-Century team


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The women’s swim and dive program led the conference in athletes named to the Pac-12 All-Century Swim and Dive Team, with 10 Trojans on the list of 26 total athletes, announced by the Pac-12 on Monday night. The well-decorated USC program stood out on an all-conference team of national and Olympic champions.

The 10 athletes named to the list were Cynthia Woodhead (freestyle sprints), Haley Anderson (freestyle distance), Lindsay Benko-Mintenko (freestyle distance), Rebecca Soni (breaststroke), Katinka Hosszu (individual medley), Kristine Quance-Julian (individual medley and breaststroke), Kaitlin Sandeno (individual medley), Blythe Hartley (IM Diving, 3-Meter), Victoria Ishimatsu (IM Diving) and Haley Ishimatsu (platform). Quance-Julian and Hartley were two of only five athletes to make the team in more than one specialty.

Each of the 26 swimmers named to the list has competed in at least one Olympic games and as a group notched 101 Olympic medals. Individually, the Trojans were accordingly well-decorated. Woodhead won three gold medals at the 1978 World Championships when she was only 14-years-old and set seven world records in her career, though she was unable to compete in the Olympics due to the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympics.

Anderson earned an Olympic silver medal in 2012, and Benko-Mintenko earned gold medals in 2000 and 2004 and held the world record in freestyle distance. Soni is a six-time Olympic medalist, winning two gold medals in Beijing and one in London. Hosszu competed in the Olympics and won the World Championships five times, breaking records in multiple distances.

Quance-Julian won gold at the 1996 Olympics, and Hartley won bronze in 2004. Sandeno took home four Olympic medals, including gold in 2004, and helped to break the 4×200 relay by more than two seconds that year. Haley Ishimatsu was a world champion. Her sister Victoria Ishimatsu is the only four-time Pac-12 diver of the year. She currently coaches the diving team.

The women’s program joined the men’s program in leading their respective All-Century teams in athletes represented. The list represented a century of conference and nation-wide domination by Trojan athletes in swim and dive.