Torri Huske knows all about a close race.
Back in 2021 at the Tokyo Olympics, Arlington swimmer Victoria “Torri” Huske, 21, missed medaling in the 100-meter butterfly by less than the blink of an eye. Then 18, she placed fourth in her heat, one-hundredth of a second behind bronze medalist Emma McKeon of Australia and just 14-hundredths of a second behind Canada’s Maggie MacNeil, who won the gold.
Ouch.
“Of course, we were not allowed to be there (due to the pandemic), and she called me at 2:30 in the morning,” recalls Jim Huske, Torri’s dad. “There was a long pause, and she said, ‘You know, I think if I work real hard, I can win Worlds next year.’ And she did. That’s how she is — she pushes.”
Fast-forward three years.
Anyone who watched the Paris Olympics knows Huske as one of the winningest athletes at the Summer Games, earning five medals. Among her three golds and two silvers, she won the 100-meter butterfly, gaining the redemption she trained so hard to earn. In that unforgettable race, she didn’t take a breath for the last five strokes. Her dad says that made the difference.
“She wanted it. She knew she couldn’t breathe, so she didn’t breathe,” he says. “If she took one breath, she wouldn’t have got it.”
Those in her inner circle back in Arlington were over the moon.
“I could believe it, but I couldn’t believe it,” says Torey Ortmayer, Yorktown High School‘s swim coach who helped Huske step up her strength and conditioning in high school. “Finding a way to go and win that race — just refusing to quit — I found myself in tears.”
The acclaimed swimmer admits the loss in Tokyo fueled her determination to win in Paris, making victory that much sweeter.
“As devastating as it was at the time, I think it needed to happen,” Huske says. “It made me want it so much more, and I think it maybe gave me that mental edge.”
Surprisingly, Huske was most proud of her performance in the 100-meter freestyle, where she earned a silver medal.
“I had a huge time drop with that one,” she says. “I feel like that’s an event I struggled with a little bit in the past, and I’m finally learning how to win that race. I stuck to my race plan, and I just executed it. I feel really proud with that one.”
NoVA Roots
Huske is a Northern Virginia native, growing up in Arlington as the only child of Ying and Jim Huske. She started swimming at age 6 with Arlington Aquatic Club and wore a wetsuit for two years because she was always cold in the pool.
“Torri was not a prodigy — she started to get pretty good around 13, really good around 14, and kind of exploded at 15,” says Jim Huske. “She lost a lot. She learned to channel it into a very positive frame.”
Huske’s perseverance sets her apart as a swimmer, but she never had her sights set on the Olympics. The standout high school athlete just hoped to one day swim in college.
“It was never really a dream for me, because it seemed so unobtainable,” the Stanford University junior says. “The first time I realized I would maybe be able to do that was in 2019 when I won the 100 fly in the Winter Nationals.”
Gaining Strength
Huske grew stronger swimming for the Yorktown High School swim team from 2017 to 2021, preparing her to compete on the world stage. Ortmayer saw a shift in Huske’s swimming goals with success at the world junior championships after her sophomore year. There, she excelled, winning six medals (five gold, one silver) at the Budapest, Hungary, competition. Because she wanted to compete with the best of the best, Huske asked Ortmayer to help her get stronger. He said between juggling swim practice and homework, Huske at first only had 20 extra minutes daily for strength training.
“She immediately started seeing the benefits of how much more durable she was, how much stronger she felt in practice,” Ortmayer says. “Not even three months after we got started, she went and won the U.S. Open, beating the reigning American record holder and previous Olympic silver medalist, and that’s when her eyes really opened.”
Suddenly the unimaginable seemed attainable. With her eyes on the ultimate prize, Huske stepped up her workout intensity, getting stronger. And then the pandemic hit.
“I remember having a call with her in April of 2020,” Ortmayer says. “I was like, ‘Torri, you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep training like this.’ She was working out six or seven hours a day just in fear of losing everything that she had done.”
Continuing to train her over the spring and summer of 2020, Ortmayer says Huske hit her groove with tough workout challenges outside the pool. Running steep hills was one of the grueling tasks Huske took on.
“Yes, it helped her strength, but it taught her from a different angle — just the lesson of you don’t quit,” he says.
Huske would go on to personify the notion of not quitting, coming up short in her 2021 Olympic 100-meter butterfly race and ultimately winning gold in the 2024 Olympics. Her family was poolside to witness the glory firsthand this time around, but her dad says Torri’s ability to keep moving forward after her Olympic performances, whether from victory or defeat, may be another of her many superpowers.
“That’s the funny thing about Torri and this family — Torri was past it,” her dad says. “Her last swim was Sunday and we met her Monday night, and you could see she was already moved on. That’s why Torri’s successful: She doesn’t dwell on defeats and doesn’t let victory go to her head very long.”
The hometown hero returned from Paris in August and shared some advice with starstruck members of the Arlington Aquatic Club.
“Anything is possible,” Huske told them. “If you apply yourself and work really hard at something you love, you can accomplish pretty much anything — so much more than you realize.”
Looking Ahead
An exemplary student, Huske took a gap year last year to prepare for the Olympic Games and returned to Stanford in September. Though she isn’t quite sure of her long-term career goals yet, she will be a design major working in engineering and sustainability.
“I would like to do something that benefits the environment in some way,” she says.
Her parents say it’s not swimming they were most proud of during Huske’s latest Olympic endeavor. They will remember other significant moments, like when their daughter invited silver medalist Gretchen Walsh to the top of the medal podium with her during the 100-meter butterfly award ceremony.
“I was really happy for the swimming because she works hard but was more proud of the way she handled herself,” Jim Huske says. “The pool is not going to last forever, but the other things, like inviting Gretchen up there, those are the things that make you proud.”
Torri Trivia
Favorite restaurant:
Peking Gourmet Inn in Falls Church (She orders the restaurant’s famed Peking duck.)
Favorite hiking spot:
Billy Goat Trail near Potomac, Maryland
Favorite museum:
National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC
If she wasn’t a swimmer, she’d want to surf:
“I think that’s so cool, and it comes with the whole lifestyle of living near the coast.”
Childhood idols:
Olympic swimmers Katie Ledecky and Maya DiRado
‘Pinch me’ moment after the Paris Olympics:
A Swiftie, Huske attended a Taylor Swift concert at Wembley Stadium and met Swift’s family.
Feature image by Mike Lewis/U.S. Swimming
This story originally ran in our November issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
