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 career
• why it helps to train with people better than you
• the fact that her relay swim times, which is more of a team effort, were always faster than her individual times for the same distance
• how her training changed in college to become more specialized for short and medium distance
• how being one of the few black swimmers motivated her and made her appreciate her God-given gifts
• what swimming taught her about perserverance and suffering defeats
• the advice she’d give her 25 year old self (live in the moment)