Downstream

chance that participants may
contract illness from
competing in such water’.
They need to be ‘aware of the
physically strenuous nature’
of the event and fit and
healthy enough to take part.
‘When we started there
were hardly any mass swims
in the Thames,’ says John,
‘there’s been an explosion in
the last two years. Other race
organisers thought it would
be easy, but there is a wide