Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

The Sandpipers of Nevada are led by Ron Aitken. The powerhouse age-group swimming program is an unlikely force in American open water swimming, given its location in the American southwestern desert near Las Vegas.

But Coach Aitken has been annually taking his best young swimmers to the USA Swimming National Open Water Swimming Championships since 2010.

He talks about open water swimming in Fort Myers, Florida where 6 high school students from the Sandpipers competed in the 10 km race: Riley Molina (22nd in 1:57:05.84), Carter Grimes (24th in 1:58:30.53), Nicholas McDowell (34th in 2:02:43.83), Erica Sullivan (23rd in 2:07:23.21), and Hailey Houck (29th in 2:11:17.76).

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