Aria Kapoor ’24 was not a fan of swimming.
The Colby College commit loathed putting on swim caps at age five when she first attempted the sport. Kapoor battled with layering on two swim caps, which could not have been comfortable for a small child’s head.
But after a few years, Kapoor won the battle, gained control over the caps, and was finally able to enjoy the sport.
That’s not to say, however, that Kapoor wasn’t occasionally baffled by some of swimming’s strange quirks. “It’s such a weird sport. I think about it, and I’m like, ‘What the heck am I doing?’” Kapoor said.
One such quirk is the measurement of time in swimming. “Some types of land sports get so much more rest and we get like five seconds, if we’re lucky,” Kapoor said. “But I also think people don’t really understand that like .05 to .5 seconds can make a huge difference in your swim even though you can’t even clock .5 seconds. It’s crazy.”
Kapoor experienced first-hand the importance of milliseconds at the San Diego President’s Day Senior Classic Meet, the meet where she felt her career begin to gain momentum.
First, she explained, qualifying for the meet was already an accomplishment, but then she proceeded to swim best times in every one of her events. She qualified for Far Westerns in the 50-yard freestyle by .04 seconds, to which she said, “See? There’s where the time comes in again. That little little bit of time helps me to qualify.” Subsequently, at Far Westerns, she continued to achieve her best times, carrying her success all the way to a college commitment.
The key to athletic longevity, according to Kapoor, is to check-in with yourself. “Understand that it’s okay to take breaks, and it’s going to get hard,” she said. “If you’re not having fun, maybe think ‘I’ll take a break’ or maybe ‘I’ll put less pressure on myself.’”
Kapoor has found success in water, but not so much on land. “I suck at land,” she said. “I’ve broken so many bones on land. It’s a problem.”
Kapoor’s incompetence on land came at a cost when she was covering the pool one day. “I was fully dressed and I just slipped,” she said. Thinking back, Kapoor called the incident “traumatizing,” but in the moment, there was only one thing she was thinking about.
“The first thing that I was worried about was my phone,” she said. “That’s really embarrassing. I’m not even that attached to my phone. But maybe that’s what I think about when I’m drowning under my parka.”
Fortunately, Kapoor will not have to endure any more pool covers at Colby, as the East Coast school has an indoor pool due to the snow which Kapoor is gladly looking forward to. “I love snow,” she said “I prefer snow over rain any day.”
Now, how would Kapoor’s skills hold up in the event of a shark attack? Alas, while Aria Kapoors are a bit more common to find in the snow than sharks, who knows? In the event of such an encounter, Kapoor said, “I’d just freeze. Once I unfroze, I’d probably try to sprint away, but sharks are so speedy I’d likely get eaten in two seconds.”
What if Kapoor had a human companion who would, perhaps, you know, delay the shark? “I’d be so speedy compared to them. But then I would try to save them,” she said.
“So then maybe we’d both get eaten.”
