Yrjö Niemelä moves to Helsinki. There he, unemployed, homeless, and penniless, tries to commit suicide but is rescued by a soldier of the Salvation Army.
The sports film Avoveteen (1939), directed by Orvo Saarikivi, is based on the novel by Urho Karhumäki. Yrjö Niemelä leaves the countryside for Helsinki. Unemployed, homeless, and penniless, the young man tries to commit suicide in desperation but is rescued at the last minute by a soldier of the Salvation Army. His luck changes when Yrjö gets a job as a warehouse worker and, as a fast runner, a sports coach. His childhood sweetheart Elsa encourages him to succeed.
The countryside in the early 1930s. After the death of his mother, Yrjö Niemelä decides to go to Helsinki to free himself from his stepfather's command. On the way, he meets his childhood friend Elsa Kieronperän by chance and spends the night in her barn. At the moment of separation, Yrjö assures her that he will return and asks Elsa to wait.
In Helsinki, however, Yrjö cannot find work. Spending time on a park bench, he meets Lehtinen, a traveling salesman who has seen better days, who rescues him from the clutches of a swindler. Yrjö has placed an advertisement in a newspaper offering 500 marks to anyone who will find him a job: shady bootlegger Lindeman responds and takes the money, but Yrjö flees the scene, realizing that the man is a bootlegger. Yrjö finds himself in an increasingly desperate situation: he earns a loaf of bread by helping the bakery driver, sleeps on a park bench, and loses money to pickpockets for pawning a watch his mother gave him. Finally, he is ready to jump off the bridge and under the train, but a fellow Salvation Army soldier makes a last-minute dash for help.
At the Salvation Army's night shelter, Yrjö meets Lehtinen again, who encourages the young man to go and see his old acquaintance, a shopkeeper. George manages to get to the busy merchant counselor by pretending to be his nephew: the merchant counselor has no sister, but takes a liking to George when he confesses that his plight has driven him into an emergency. George gets a job in the company's warehouse, where the cheerful Marttila teaches him the ways of the house.
In the winter, Elsa gives birth to a son but refuses to reveal the father to her parents, who urge her to write to him: 'If he loves me, he'll come without asking,' Elsa thinks. In Helsinki, Yrjö's life is settled: he lives with Lehtinen and spends his free time with Marttila and the girls he has acquired. One summer outing in the countryside, he upsets his companion by talking about his longing for the countryside, with the result that she runs away on the bus. While running after it, George meets a coach who inspires him to train running with determination.
Before long, he is mentioned in the newspaper as a "promising runner" and wins an important race, which Elsa also attends at Lehtinen's invitation. Rich widow Järveläinen wants to celebrate the winner and seduces Yrjö while Elsa and Lehtinen wait in vain for Yrjö at the coffee table. When Yrjö returns in the morning, he finds the flat empty and the key on the floor in the hallway: Lehtinen moves back into the night's lodgings but is run over by a car in the street while reaching for a competition notice with Yrjö's name on it, and soon dies of his injuries. Yrjö fails in the Finnish championship in what is considered a scandal and decides to return to the country despite the pleas of a shopkeeper.
Yrjö arrives at Elsa's cottage, meets her parents and her son Matti, but does not immediately understand Elsa as his mother and himself as his father. As an anxious workman, Yrjö is allowed to stay in the house and soon wins over the host, and eventually the hostess, to his side. Matti and Yrjö get on well together, but Yrjö only discovers his paternity when Elsa, in distress, invokes it after Matti falls into the water from a pier and Yrjö rescues the boy.
Back on land, Yrjö takes up his training with renewed enthusiasm. He attends a coaching camp and after a qualifying competition, he is selected for the Finnish Olympic team, despite some doubtful votes. Elsa and her parents follow the 10 000 m race on the radio, a business counselor in the stands cheering her on. Yrjö starts the race calmly, but keeps rising and eventually takes the lead. He starts to drop again towards the end of the race until he takes first place on the last lap and leads the other Finns to a triple victory with a new world record time. On the radio, Elsa smiles as George is seen on the highest podium with a laurel wreath on his head.
