New Zealand champion swimmer, Alex Archer, arrives in Rome for the 1960 Olympics. Cosseted by an interfering manager and an eagle-eyed chaperone, she wonders just how good a time she can have in the Eternal City. She wants to do well in her races, but it seems everyone expects her to do better. There’s more complication in the form of Tom, a Taihape boy posing as an Italian. Just how interested is he? Can she really hope to win a medal?
The Alex in Rome story is revealed to us by a group of modern-day swimmers attending a training camp. They act out this story and explore what it tells them about being high-performance athletes trying to juggle the demands of their sport with important choices they have to make in everyday life.