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Hitler's Olympics: The Boys of '36

About the Show

In 1936, nine working class boys from the University of Washington took the rowing world and the United States by storm when their eight-oar crew captured the gold medal at the Olympics in Berlin. These sons of loggers, shipyard workers and farmers overcame tremendous psychological, physical and economic hardships to beat not only the Ivy League teams of the East Coast, but Adolf Hitler's elite German rowers. As this documentary suggests, the boys' unexpected victory, and the obstacles they overcame to achieve it, inspired a nation struggling to emerge from the depths of the Depression.