A lot of the poor kids appeared to have zero swim experience with a lot wearing no goggles. I wonder what percentage of kids will stay with the sport.
i had a terrible experience volunteering as a swim buddy for one of these races. had to swim with kids on my back because many were drowning and not enough life guards. probably more so parents are to blame for not enrolling them in proper training. luckily i reached out to my local RD and she made the kids take a pre race qualification session, but this may have been forgotten about since 3 months after that lovely 2 year disease shutdown happened