Torey Ortmayer, who has led the summer Tuckahoe Tigers swimming team since 2000, is starting a new year-round swimming organization named Hydra Aquatics.
The club will be located at the Tuckahoe Recreation Club pool in McLean, and is slated to open this fall.
Ortmayer currently is the Tuckahoe aquatics director. He will remain in that position, as well as Tuckahoe’s summer coach.
Tuckahoe has won three Northern Virginia Swimming League Division I championships under his leadership, including the last two, and has one runner-up finish.
Ortmayer stepped down as the head swimming coach at Yorktown High School in Arlington to start the new club. He has led the Yorktown Patriots to numerous team championships during his time at the helm, including three straight Class 6 girls state titles.
Tuckahoe and Ortmayer had been discussing starting a small year-round club for a number of years, and now the timing is right, he told FFXnow. The new program will have no more than 300 swimmers, primarily but not exclusively ages 18 and under. Swimmers of all abilities will be welcomed.
“It’s a lot of work, but we are super-excited about this,” Ortmayer said. “We want to create something different, smaller and unique and be able to work personally with every swimmer in the program and give them opportunities. I have learned a lot from all of my coaching experiences, and we want to use all of that.”
Ortmayer, 31, has been well-connected with year-round swimming in Northern Virginia. He also coaches at the York Swim Club, but that likely will end once Hydra Aquatics begins.
Ortmayer was a summer swimmer at Arlington’s Overlee pool, a longtime power in the Northern Virginia Swimming League.
As the Yorktown coach, Ortmayer led the girls team to four state championships and multiple runner-up finishes. His Yorktown teams also won numerous district and region titles. His boys teams at Yorktown were perennial district, region and state contenders, winning one region crown and a couple of district titles.
Ortmayer grew up swimming for Dominion Hills and Overlee pools in Arlington during the summer, and was a three-year varsity water-polo player and swimmer at Gonzaga College High School.
In 2016, Ortmayer graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he continued to play water polo.
