So my dad was stationed with and trained with these kids dad when we lived in Guam in the late 80's. Fast forward almost 30 years and the kids end up going to the high school in Northern California where my brother teaches and coached them in cross country. (Keep in mind that this was after 25 years of having no contact with their family...my brother just happened to recognize the last name.)

Anyways...here's an update we got from them:

Powless kid update,

As the current top Junior Mountain and Road biker in the USA, Neilson Powless has just been selected to represent both the USA Jr. National Team on both teams. At age 17, Still a junior at Roseville High School, Powless started off his season with some big wins after signing contracts with Specialized bikes for both the Road and Mt. Biking (with Team Whole Athlete).

After bridging over a 2 min. gap in the Valley of the Sun Stage Race in Arizona last month, he ended up 2nd place overall in the general classification in his first ever state race. The race included a time 14 mile time trial, 65 mile road race and ended with a criterium. His results caught the eye of the National Team Road Director Billy Innes, who then selected Powless to the National Team to race in the upcoming Paris Roubaix (later this month). In addition, Powless will also race in Europe the Grevenbicht Criterium in the Netherlands, the Paris Roubaix in France, then finally the Ster van Zuid Limburg in Belgium.

In the meantime, Powless was also making his mark in his mountain biking and had more big results over the past two weeks winning both of the US Cup Races in Bonneli Park and Fontana, Calif.. Within an hour of the invitations to race in Europe, the USA mountain bike director, Marc Gullickson invited Neilson to ride on the National MTB team at the upcoming Pam American Games/Championships. Powless departs tomorrow for Brazil to represent the 17-19 Jr. MTB Pan Am Games.

Neilson is taking plenty of school work with him as he continues to represent his high school and racing on five different biking teams including:

1.) Roseville High School’s first ever Mountain biking Team

2.) Whole Athlete Mountain Biking Team

3.) Specials Jr. Road Bike Team

4.) USA Jr. National Mountain Biking Team and

5.) USA Jr. Road Biking Team

It will be interesting to watch the development as there has never been a USA athlete try and juggle two different elite level teams of this caliber on Mountain and Road before.

Neilson hopes to be a positive ambassador for his high school as well as his commitment to his other teams as well.

His sister, Shayna Powless (who is in her second year at UCLA) riding professionally for Team BMC also qualified as our National Champion U23 MTB rider. She was also selected to race the Pan American Championships, but was sidelined by illness. She will have to wait to race with her brother later this summer in Europe. They expect to make their next debut together later in May for the Czech Republic and Albstat, Germany World Cups.