TORRI Huske is one of the fastest female swimmers on the planet, achieving world records and titles before turning 20.
Here’s everything you need to know about the American, who’s competing at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Victoria ‘Torri’ Huske seems to produce her best performances on the biggest stages, but the current 100m butterfly world champion didn’t really like swimming as a youngster.
Torri preferred soccer, ice skating and taekwondo, and as a six-year-old even had to wear a wetsuit to deal with the cold water.
She told Washington City Paper: “I was always really cold all the time, and I feel like that was a big factor. Probably for the first like two years …
“I didn’t really care for it, but I feel like I just kind of stuck with it anyway.
“I’m not really exactly sure why, but it eventually did start to grow on me and I really liked it.”
Torri was one of 11 teenagers who competed for Team USA at Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021 due to the pandemic) when she was just 18, having broken the USA women’s 100m butterfly record twice at trials.
In Japan she helped her nation win silver in the women’s 4×100 medley relay, and also finished fourth in the 100m fly by one-hundredth of a second.
Coming so close to an individual medal at her first Olympics motivated the top athlete to improve even further.
And a year later, at the Budapest 2022 World Championships, she became the 100m butterfly world champion, breaking her own USA record yet again.
She took home additional gold medals in the 4×100 medley and the 4×100 mixed medley relay races.
Torri also won bronze medals in the women’s 100m freestyle, the 4×100 freestyle relay, as well as the 4x100m mixed freestyle.
The young Olympian has said her mother was a “big inspiration”, telling USA Swimming: “My mom has a cool story.
“She studied architecture in China, but she absolutely hated it.
“So later she studied engineering at Virginia Tech, and she didn’t like engineering that much either, and then she became like an IT person.
My first 50 anywhere, I don’t feel anything just because of all the adrenaline and the nerves
Torri Huske
“I feel like she is a really big inspiration to me. Yeah, I’m just lucky to have her. I feel like I’m living out my American dream.”
Torri describes her approach to swimming butterfly as “fly and die”.
She told USA Today: “It’s a sprint, I’m not gonna hold back really my first 50.
“My first 50 anywhere, I don’t feel anything just because of all the adrenaline and the nerves and stuff like that.
“So I kind of just let my body take it out, and then usually I feel it more in the second half.”
Torri is competing in the 100-meter butterfly at Paris 2024, as well as representing Team USA in the 100-meter freestyle for the first time in her Olympic career.
She plans on maintaining the same preparation style and schedule throughout this year’s Olympics — which she cites as responsible for her success.
Torri also qualified for two additional event finals during the Olympic Trials.
She finished third in the 200m individual medley semifinals, before ultimately deciding to withdraw from the event, and she also came fourth in the 50m freestyle.
Torri was born in Arlington, Virginia on December 7, 2022.
She will be representing the USA at Paris 2024.
It will be her second Olympic Games, having also competed at Tokyo 2020.
