HSC Coaching staff

About Lee Portingale, Head Coach

Lee started swimming when his mum introduced him to it as a baby. He joined the City of Bristol Squad when he was 12 years old and worked hard to achieve national times by the time he was 13 years old.

He raced at national level and above for the next 10 years before retiring from competitive swimming to focus on coaching, although he had been coaching at Bristol from the age of 16 where he worked under Eric Henderson, a GB coach. From Bristol he moved to Watford Swimming Club and then on to Auebach Swimming Club in Germany before joining Hitchin Swimming Club as Head Coach.

Whilst at Watford he became involved with cross channel swimmers and a new chapter in his career started - open water swimming. He won the Champion of Champions, a 9 mile swim; the Torbay 8 mile sea swim and was nominated for the Long Distance Swimming Association Swimmer of the year. He won the 21.5 mile Loch Lomond swim in 2006 and came 3rd in the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim (28.5 miles) in 2007.

Lee is also helping some of our Hitchin Swimmers with their open water competitions.

Volunteer Coaches

We are extremely fortunate to have the support of our volunteer coaches.  Without them, it would be impossible to provide the quantity of training currently available in the club within the current fee structure.  A big thank you to all of them!