An elderly Joe Rantz watches his grandson rowing a fiberglass boat, thinking back to his glorious rowing days. In 1936, young Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) is a poor engineering student at the University of Washington (UW), living in an abandoned car and eating canned food, with no job and tuition fee due in two weeks. All jobs in the local area are already full and there are no openings.Fellow struggling student Roger Morris (Sam Strike) tells Joe the 8+ rowing team comes with jobs and boarding. Despite not being rowers, they make the UW junior varsity (JV) team in a special year for coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton), who is under pressure to beat rival Cal and make the 1936 Olympics. Hundreds of hopefuls turn up for 8 spots on the rowing team and are put through a brutal and rigorous testing regime by Al, spread over several weeks. Al says that an average human takes 4 liters of oxygen per minute, but a rover needs to train their body to take in 8 liters of oxygen per minute, and a human body is not designed for that.
Joe and Roger are just happy to have a dorm room and steady food, and gladly mop floors for tuition. The others selected are Don Hume, Shorty Hunt (Bruce Herbelin-Earle), Jim McMillin (Wil Coban), Chuck Day (Thomas Elms), Johnny White (Thomas Stephen Varey), and Gordy Adam (Joel Phillimore). Glenn Morry (Frankie Fox) is the Coxswain. Positions 1 to 3 give direction, 4, 5, 6 give power, 7 sets the pace and 8 is the Coxswain.Al is supported by assistant coaches Tom Bolles (James Wolk) and Coach Brown (Dominic Tighe). Al is married to Hazel (Courtney Henggeler).
Cal team is coached by Ky Ebright (Glenn Wrage) who has a strong team going into the year and is odds on favorites to be selected for the Olympics.Joe starts dating Joyce (Hadley Robinson) who is in the same class. Joe admits to racing-shell builder George Pocock (Peter Guinness) that he’s been on his own since his dad abandoned him at age thirteen.The JV and varsity 8+ teams train together, trying to get their rowing “swing” in sync with fast pace. Coach Al worries that his varsity crew isn’t fast enough for the Olympics, and the JVs are strong but inexperienced. The varsity crew falls apart at anything over 34 strokes per minute.
On George’s suggestion, Al brings back Bobby Moch (Luke Slattery), the experienced but headstrong coxswain, warning him to follow orders on the JVs or he’s out.At the Pacific Coast Regatta on Lake Washington, UW and Cal race two miles in front of 100,000 fans. Coach Al wants the JV boat to maintain a steady pace, hoping the Cal JVs would screw up, but Bobby calls a fast pace and pulls off a course-record win (their run was 9 seconds under the previous course record), astonishing Al. The rowers become campus stars.
Joyce and Joe end up having sex, and even the socially shy Hume picks up a date.Ahead of the four-mile Poughkeepsie Regatta in New York, for a berth in the Olympics, Al risks his job by promoting the JVs above his experience varsity boat. The Eastern schools have far better teams since students back East start rowing at a much younger age and the talent pool is a lot wider. Al believes that the JV team starts to pick up strength, just as the other teams start to tire away at the 2nd half of the race.
Al knows that if his junior team trips up, he will be an easy target for the varsity board to pin the blame on.
After Joe sees his long-lost dad Harry (Alec Newman) in Seattle (Harry is very cold towards Joe and says that he doesn’t owe Joe anything), he performs badly in New York practice and is benched.
Joe packs up to leave, but George Pocock tells him not to quit like his father. Joe reconsiders and agrees with Al that it’s all about the boat, the only thing he has.On race day, Bobby is told by Al to start slowly and let the other boats tire, then kick mid-race to 35 strokes per minute. Bobby starts at 28 and holds it past mid-race, then coaxes 36, with a 40-stroke finish to lead ragtag UW to upset Navy, Cal, and the other privileged eastern schools like Penn, Syracuse and Columbia.The U.S. Olympic Committee is short on funds, so UW needs to raise $5,000 to pay for their travel, otherwise a richer team will go. The team and community raise the money in a week (they were still $300, and Ky stepped up to write Al a check to cover the shortfall), and they sail for Berlin.
In Nazi Germany, eighth-seat rower Don Hume (Jack Mulhern) immediately falls sick. At the opening ceremony, Roger tells Jesse Owens (Jyuddah Jaymes) to show the Germans that he’s the fastest guy in the world. Owens replies, “not the Germans, the folks back home”.The team then sets an Olympic record in the qualifier, but it takes a toll on Hume. Hume has caught some kind of bug and is super dehydrated. The Germans are the team to beat in the finals.
Al protests the finals lane assignments (The US team is assigned the side lanes despite posting the fastest qualifying times. The side lanes are supposed to have higher wind effect when the wind blows), but realizes he’ll have calm water at the end (at the last 500 meters where Al believes that his team has a chance to beat the Germans), so he calls for a fast start to stay close to the great German team, then a big kick to finish.Adolf Hitler attends the finals expecting his 8+ team to complete a German gold-medal sweep of the rowing events (Germany has already taken Gold in the ones, twos and fours). Bobby fails to hear the finals starting gun and starts badly, with Hume struggling early; nonetheless, Bobby coaxes Hume and the crew to 42 strokes per minute to get within reach, then calls for 46 with 300 meters to go.
The U.S. wins the gold in a photo finish over Italy and Germany, to the team’s jubilation and much to Hitler’s chagrin. The elderly Joe comes out of his reverie and tells his grandson that his eight-man crew were always one.
