Trojan falls in qualifying round of Winter Olympics


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USC’s only winter Olympian in the Sochi games missed her chance to earn a medal on Saturday. Jung-Hwa Seo, a moguls freestyle skier from South Korea who according to her Facebook page is set to graduate from USC in 2014, finished No. 14 in the qualifying run for the women’s mogul event on Saturday.

24-year-old Seo almost missed the qualifying round after a bad fall during a practice run on Friday. The Korea Times reported that Seo fell while practicing at Sochi’s Rosa Khutor Extreme Park and suffered “concussion-like symptoms.”

After putting Seo through several medical tests at a local hospital, doctors cleared her to compete just hours before Saturday’s event.

“She suffered a light bruise to her cervical vertebrae,” an official from the Korea Ski Federation told the Korea Times. “However, the injury isn’t severe and she will be able to compete on Saturday.”

Seo’s efforts were not enough to get her a medal, as only the top 10 skiers advanced to the next round. Seo finished outside of the top 10, at 14th in the qualifier and 24th overall with a score of 14.16.

Seo also competed in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, where she similarly failed to make it past the qualifying round.

In Seo’s event, Canadian skier Justine Dufour-Lapointe took home the gold, with sister Chloe winning silver and American Hannah Kearney securing the bronze.

Following her event, Seo posted a message on Facebook.

“The result is not [what] I was hoping for [over the] last few years but I am satisfied … that I tried and pushed myself … until the end … Thank you [to] everyone who helped me,” Seo wrote on her profile.

Though the university has more Olympians, medalists and gold medalists than any other university in the world, the vast majority of USC Olympians compete in the summer games. Seo is one of only four winter Olympians to have attended USC.

Overall, 420 USC alumni have competed in the Olympics since 1904. USC alumni have won 135 gold medals, 88 silver medals and 64 bronze medals, but no USC alum has ever won a medal in the winter games. USC athletes have appeared in the Winter Olympic Games nine different times.

If USC were a country, it would rank No. 12 for its number of gold medals. Trojan Olympians have represented 60 countries and competed in 28 different sports.

USC set a new school record in the 2012 London Olympics with 25 total medals, including 12 gold medals.