'This year was just a disaster' – Neilson Powless turns the page after frustrating season

There are all sorts of reasons why a rider might wind up at the Tour of Guangxi in October. Some travel there to chase points, others are sent as punishment, and almost every team fills out its roster with a gaggle of youngsters who can gain useful WorldTour experience. 

And then there are men like Neilson Powless, who finds himself in China banking race days after a season ruined by injury and ill fortune. Although the American managed to notch up a stage win at the Tour of Austria in July, he was frank about his rationale for lining up at the Tour of Guangxi for the first time since 2018, when he was a neo-pro at Jumbo-Visma.

“Hopefully I can finish out my season well and just give myself some confidence going into next season, because this year was just a disaster,” Powless told Domestique last week.

The problems began in the depths of last winter, when Powless first began to suffer from knee inflammation. He managed a solid enough block of training to start at the Tour de la Provence in February only to abandon on the third day and undergo surgery shortly afterwards. 

That operation ruled Powless out of the Classics, where he had enjoyed a breakthrough win at Dwars door Vlaanderen in 2025, but there was still initial optimism in the EF Education-EasyPost camp that he would be back in action well before the summer. It wasn’t to be, and Powless would endure a maddening period on the sidelines before he could return to the fray.

“I was really in the dark,” Powless said. “The injury was really strange because after the surgery, I didn’t have any more pain, which was great, but the swelling in my knee was coming and going at such a large extent that some days I just couldn’t bend my knee at all, just because there was so much fluid, and it was pretty much inexplicable. 

“At first, we thought it was only going to be two weeks off the bike and then a few months later I could jump back into some racing. But it ended up being a month off the bike and even then, when I got back on the bike it was stop and go. It turned into three, four months without knowing if I was even going to race at all this year.”

Powless had hoped to make it back in time for a seventh straight Tour de France appearance, but instead he made his return to competition in the more Off Broadway setting of the Tour of Austria. A fine victory at St. Johann Alpendorf on stage 3 suggested that Powless had turned a corner, but he wasn’t quite out of the woods.

“My knee was still acting strange sometimes, but it never hurt, so we kind of just kept pressing on,” said Powless. And then, just when Powless finally felt he had resolved the problem, his ill-starred season threw another couple of obstacles into his path.

“After the knee injury, I crashed twice in Poland and fractured something in my shoulder. And then I had two stomach viruses within three weeks and that ended up taking me out of the World Championships. I was performing poorly in the last Italian block I did, which is really disappointing. I mean, I hate going to races and underperforming when I was expecting more, so that was kind of tough, but at least now I feel like I’m finally able to do my job.”

That bout of illness meant that Powless missed out on playing a part in a historic day for American cycling in Montreal, and he watched on television as Brandon McNulty soloed to the rainbow jersey after a stirring team performance. It must have been a bittersweet moment for Powless, who had gone closer than any other American to an elite men’s medal in the 21st century when he placed fifth in Leuven in 2021.

“But to be honest, me being there couldn’t have helped them win more,” Powless joked. “They won without me there, which was great, and I was just happy to see it happen.”

While Powless’ victory in Austria – the ninth of his career – was a welcome reminder of his gifts, it also served to heighten his frustration when illness disrupted the final weeks of the campaign. He might have salvaged a whole lot more from 2026 if his health had managed to hold.

“It’s definitely frustrating because I know if I can just have a period of uninterrupted training, then I can get to a really high level without needing too many race days: I can just show up and be ready to race,” he said. “This year was just terrible, so I hope that I can just finish this year strong, and then just have a smooth winter training into next season.”
The Tour of Guangxi is largely a sprinters’ benefit, but Powless will look to be in the mix on the key stage to Nongla, and he was already on the offensive on the opening day around Chongzuo, earning himself the most combative rider prize in the process.

And though Powless insisted that he would take his usual three-week break this off-season, he arrived in China with the air of a man eager to make up for lost time. “Because of the lack of race days, I just don’t feel anywhere near burnt out,” he said. “So I’m just going to race as much as I can, take a normal break and then restart as usual.” 

The curtain falls on the WorldTour season in Guangxi, but for some, 2027 can’t come quickly enough.