Nothing is guaranteed in the open water: not the weather, not the conditions, not the final placing. Humans are too infinitesimally small when compared to the size, power and scale of nature, their chosen athletic venue. Throw out the confines of a pool. Forget the uniformity of a running track. A 1500-meter swim in the pool is 1500 meters. A mile on the track is a mile.

But when do swimmers on a one-mile swim on a GPS-marked open water course ever swim exactly one mile?

Never.

Besides the inability for people to swim straight, there is also the jostling and movement of pack swimming in a race and the movement of the turn buoys due to wind and waves, and myriad dynamic movements of boats, packs and kayakers in the water.

So swimmers can expect to swim further than the exact distance…and winners are never guaranteed.

So who is going to win the Fran Crippen SafeSwim 10K in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this morning? Australian Olympian Ky Hurst? World 25K champion Alex Meyer? World 10K champion Chip Peterson? World 10K silver medalist Andrew Gemmell? Or will one of the youngsters – who are always just strokes away from the podium – like Richard Weinberger or Arthur Fraley – going to pull an upset?

On the women’s side, there will be a titanic clash of world 5K champions – little Eva Fabian of New Hampshire and statuesque Melissa Gorman of Australia. Add the always tough Emily Brunemann of Southern California and a number of other women and the race winner can be anyone.

With an onshore finish, the winners will certainly stand tall today.

The race will be tweeted live by Open Water Source. Click here to pick up the live tweets from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Copyright © 2011 by Open Water Source