Joe Rantz arrives at the University of Washington shell house to try out for the freshman rowing team.

Joe and Roger Morris survive multiple cuts and earn spots on the freshman rowing boat.

Washington's freshman boat defeats Cal Berkeley in Seattle and sets a new course record.

Washington's freshman boat travels to the Poughkeepsie Regatta and wins the national championship race.

Ulbrickson moves the talented sophomore rowers up to the varsity boat, displacing the older seniors.

The varsity boat suffers a string of defeats and Ulbrickson eventually reverses his lineup changes.

Joe works at the Grand Coulee Dam and bonds with teammates Johnny and Chuck outside the shell house.

George Pocock takes Joe under his wing, urging him to open his heart to his teammates.

Stepmother Thula dies unexpectedly, and Joe's father Harry announces plans to build a home where Joe is welcome.

Pocock builds the varsity team a new racing shell, which he names the Husky Clipper.

Washington wins the Pacific Coast Regatta against Cal Berkeley, setting a new course record.

Coxswain Bobby Moch's daring slow-start strategy carries Washington to victory over Cal at Poughkeepsie.

Washington wins the final Olympic trial at Princeton, earning a berth at the Berlin Olympics.

The city of Seattle raises the required travel funds in two days to send the team to Berlin.

The US rowing team wins the Olympic gold medal, beating Germany by six-tenths of a second.

Pool 1 covers the essential spine of Joe Rantz's story, from his nervous arrival at the University of Washington shell house to the triumphant gold medal win in Berlin. Joe and his friend Roger survive brutal tryouts to earn spots on the freshman boat, which stuns rivals by winning at both Seattle and the Poughkeepsie Regatta. Upheaval follows as Ulbrickson reshuffles the lineup and the varsity team grinds through a string of demoralizing losses. Joe's fortunes turn when Pocock mentors him and family tragedy opens an unexpected path toward reconciliation with his father. Armed with the new Husky Clipper and a renewed sense of unity, the team sweeps the Pacific Coast Regatta, Poughkeepsie, and the Princeton trials before Seattle rallies to fund their passage to Berlin. Against every disadvantage, the boys come from behind in the final Olympic race to claim gold by the narrowest of margins.

The core journey from tryouts to Olympic gold.

Stepmother Thula forces Harry to send ten-year-old Joe away to live at the schoolhouse.

Joe's teacher leads the class into the woods and reveals that the cauliflower mushroom is edible and free.

Joe moves to Seattle to live with his brother Fred and excels academically at Roosevelt High School.

Joe proposes to Joyce by pretending to search for a four-leaf clover, then producing a diamond ring.

Joe returns to Sequim after his freshman year and a game warden shuts down his fish poaching business.

Ulbrickson announces that all boat combinations will race each other in an all-out war for varsity spots.

Joe takes Joyce on a canoe ride across Lake Washington on a rare warm and sunny afternoon.

Washington's JV boat overcomes a poor start to surge past the competition and win at Poughkeepsie.

Joe returns from the Grand Coulee Dam to find his younger siblings left unsupervised and without food.

Joe is demoted to a lower boat and realizes for the first time that he misses his former crewmates.

Joe is restored to the number one varsity boat and commits himself fully to his teammates.

Nazi officials assign Germany and Italy the best racing lanes and give the United States the worst.

Don Hume collapses after the Olympic preliminary race, and Ulbrickson moves to replace him with an alternate.

Joyce places the four-leaf clover Joe gave her atop the radio as she listens for Olympic race results.

Joe holds his gold medal and realizes the true prize is the bond he has forged with his teammates.

Pool 2 traces the quieter but crucial moments in Joe's life and on the water that supported the team's eventual triumph. It begins with Joe's painful childhood, when Thula banishes him from the family home and a schoolteacher's lesson teaches him that survival resources can be found in the most unlikely places. Joe's romance with Joyce deepens through his proposal, while his college years are marked by small competitions and setbacks that gradually forge team identity. Working-class hardships persist through the Grand Coulee summer, and a painful demotion forces Joe to admit how much his crewmates mean to him. The final stretch follows the team to Berlin, where rigged lane assignments stack the odds against them, Don's deteriorating health threatens their lineup, and Joyce waits anxiously at home until Joe finally grasps what the gold medal truly represents.

The personal and behind-the-scenes moments that shaped the team.

Joe's father Harry and stepmother Thula leave Sequim without him, abandoning Joe alone at fifteen.

Al Ulbrickson spots Joe performing gymnastics at school and encourages him to try out for the rowing team.

Joe's eyes fill with tears during the freshman team's first celebratory row, signaling an unexpected inner shift.

The freshman boat nearly defeats the varsity team during an internal practice race, shocking coach Ulbrickson.

Joe is pulled from the freshman boat for one practice and realizes just how precarious his position is.

Joe discovers that his father and stepmother have been quietly living in Seattle since the day they abandoned him.

Working with logger Charlie McDonald, Joe learns to read growth rings and see value in overlooked wood.

The Nuremberg Laws are passed in Germany, stripping Jewish citizens of their rights and citizenship.

Avery Brundage lobbies the American Olympic Committee to keep the United States competing in the Berlin Games.

Hitler marches troops into the demilitarized Rhineland and the Western powers take no action to stop him.

Bobby Moch discovers he is Jewish while collecting his passport before the team sails to Germany.

The American delegation holds the Stars and Stripes defiantly aloft during the opening ceremony, refusing to salute Hitler.

The German race starter fires his flag out of sight of the US boat, leaving them a stroke and a half behind.

Don Hume, barely conscious at the halfway mark, suddenly revives and raises the stroke rate to drive the team forward.

After hearing the gold medal result on the radio, Joyce embraces Joe's father Harry for the very first time.

Pool 3 captures the pivotal turning points that quietly redirected the course of the narrative, beginning with the defining wound of Joe's life when his father abandons him at fifteen. Early signs of Joe's potential appear when Ulbrickson recruits him at the gymnasium and when an unexpected emotional response during a celebratory row hints at his capacity for belonging. His fragility on the team becomes clear when he is briefly pulled from the boat, and a visit to his father's hidden Seattle home reopens old wounds. The Nazi political machinery darkens the horizon as the Nuremberg Laws strip Jewish citizens of rights, Brundage fights to keep the US in the Berlin Games, and Hitler seizes the Rhineland without consequence. The final revelations arrive at the Olympics themselves, as Bobby learns his Jewish heritage, the Americans defy Hitler at the opening ceremony, the starter's trick puts the US immediately behind, and Don's sudden revival and Joyce's first embrace of Harry signal the story's emotional resolution.