Starting Late, Finishing Fast

The summer before her senior year of high school, Micha Powell ’17 was watching the 2012 London Summer Olympics at home in Toronto when she made a surprising request of her mom: to time her running her first-ever 100-meter dash.

For a typical teenager it might have been just a whim stoked by televised Olympic glory. But Powell is anything but typical.

Her mother, Rosey Edeh (right), is a former Olympian who set the Canadian record in the 400-meter hurdles. Powell’s American father, Mike Powell (below, left), in 1991 broke one of the most legendary sports records—Bob Beamon’s 29-foot-2½-inch long jump at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics—and still holds the world record.

“It wasn’t anything spectacular, about 13 seconds, but it made me feel free to run and I never looked back,” she says of her inaugural sprint.

Considering what she’s achieved in four years, she doesn’t appear to have suffered from the late start. The journalism major is competing next week in the Olympic Games in Rio.

Powell, who had a breakout junior year competing on the Maryland track and field team, will represent Canada in the 4×400 meter relay.

As a Terp, Powell is coming off a year in which she set school records in the 400-meter dash racing both indoors and outdoors, and qualified for the NCAA championships for both the indoor and outdoor track and field seasons. She also ran on the sprint medley team that set a new outdoor record for the university.

She arrived at the pinnacle of track and field competition without pressure from her Olympian parents. Powell grew up in Canada with her mother, a familiar TV news personality, playing tennis and soccer, practicing gymnastics and swimming and figure skating, but never pounding around a track in spikes. During visits with her father in the United States, she noticed the admiration of track fans for the record holder with the infectious laugh, but never thought about following in his footsteps.

Difficulties in the sport she was most serious about—tennis—made her consider whether her future instead lay in track.

"I remember not feeling like I belonged in the tennis world because I had the athleticism to chase down every ball, but I didn’t quite have the feel for the ball like my competitors did,” she says. That’s when she asked her mom to time her sprint.

While her parents’ physical abilities certainly help explain her success, says UMD track and field coach Andrew Valmon, there’s far more to it than that.

“Her commitment and drive to reach this level in the sport is how she got so far in such a short period of time,” he says. “She is the only one who can put in the necessary work on and off the track to reach the highest level.”

Powell thinks her abbreviated career is actually a competitive benefit.

“Every time I get on the track I learn something new,” she says, “and as my coaches and teammates know very well, when I get a [personal record], I can’t contain my excitement and I’m already eager for more, always looking to better myself even more in the relay.”

Photographs Courtesy of Rosey Edeh, Alchetron and Maryland Athletics