This is the true story of Tony Fingleton's fight to become a champion. Brisbane in the fifties. The Fingleton kids didn't have much, but Tony always knew he could be someone special. He just didn't know how. Until his father Harold realised how fast he could swim and started training him to beat the world. But when Harold's past comes back to haunt him it is Tony who has to bear the brunt of his drunken rages.