Kydani Dover is a boss, and a record-breaking club, high school, and collegiate swimmer. I first met her in March 2016, when we were both being inducted into our high school’s athletic hall of fame. Kydani set 7 records while at North, including for 50-yard freestyle, the 100-yard free style, the 200-yard freestyle, the 200-yard individual medley, the 200-yard medley relay, the 200-yard freestyle relay, and the 400-yard freestyle relay.
At UConn, she was a part of several record-setting freestyle relays, was electe co-captain her senior year, and won an NCAA post-graduate scholarship and is pursuing her PhD at Louisiana State University.
In this interview we cover:
the effect that training in club swimming had on her high school and collegiate careerwhy it helps to train with people better than youthe fact that her relay swim times, which is more of a team effort, were always faster than her individual times for the same distancehow her training changed in college to become more specialized for short and medium distancehow being one of the few black swimmers motivated her and made her appreciate her God-given giftswhat swimming taught her about perserverance and suffering defeatsthe advice she’d give her 25 year old self (live in the moment)