Hitchin swimming club

HSC Coaches

providing a safe, enjoyable and friendly environment to allow all swimmers to fulfill their potential as competitive swimmers

Below are the coaches for Hitchin Swimming Club. Our head coach is Lee Portingale - see below for some of Lee’s achievements.

Head Coach

 

 

 

 

 

 

Squad Coaches

 

 

 

 

Other Coaches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lee Portingale

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tina Lander

Paul Mould

Claire Smith

Sheila Leach

 

John Lawrence

Grant Chivers

Mark Lander

 

 

 

All About Lee

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

 

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 when he was 16. He worked under Eric Henderson, a GB coach. From Bristol he moved to Watford SC, to Auebach SC in Germany and he is now the head coach at Hitchin SC.

 

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 being 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 the Hitchin Swimmers, and the current chair, with their open water competitions.