| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Nicole Dryden | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National team | Canada | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | April 5, 1975 Calgary, Alberta | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 72 kg (159 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Backstroke, freestyle | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Manitoba Marlins | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| College team | University of Florida Brown University | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nicole Dryden (born April 5, 1975) is a former competitive swimmer who represented Canada at two consecutive Summer Olympics.
Dryden was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1975.[1]
At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, Dryden reached the finals with the Canadian women's relay teams in the 4x100-metre freestyle relay (eighth) and in the 4x100-metre medley relay (sixth).[1] In the individual women's 100-metre backstroke, Dryden advanced to the consolation final, finishing fourteenth overall; she also participated in qualifying heats of the women's 200-metre freestyle and the women's 200-metre backstroke.[1] Four years later at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, Dryden placed fourteenth in the women's 800-metre freestyle.[1]
Dryden accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where she was a member of the Florida Gators swimming and diving team from 1993 to 1996.[2] As a Gator swimmer she was a five-time Southeastern Conference (SEC) champion (twice in the 500-yard freestyle, twice in the 800-yard freestyle relay, and once in the 1,650-yard freestyle), and received nine All-American honors.[2] She was also a five-time Ivy League champion as a swimmer for the Brown Bears swimming team of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and graduated from Brown with a bachelor's degree in international relations in 1998.[3]
Dryden earned her juris doctor degree from Brooklyn Law School in Brooklyn, New York in 2005, and currently works as a human rights and immigration lawyer in the New York City office of Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy.[3] Dryden previously served as a visa officer for the Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka and Kenya, and worked for the International Organization for Migration with Somali immigration officials.[3]
Dryden also volunteers as an athlete ambassador for several organizations that work to support the rights of children around the world, including Right To Play and SwimLanka. She is also a celebrity swimmer for Swim Across America, a charitable organization that works with former Olympic swimmers to raise funds for cancer research.[4]
