  We report the serendipitous discovery of a population of low mass, pre-main
sequence stars (PMS) in the direction of the Wolf-Rayet/O-star binary system
gamma^{2} Vel and the Vela OB2 association. We argue that gamma^{2} Vel and the
low mass stars are truly associated, are approximately coeval and that both are
at distances between 360-490 pc, disagreeing at the 2 sigma level with the
recent Hipparcos parallax of gamma^{2} Vel, but consistent with older distance
estimates. Our results clearly have implications for the physical parameters of
the gamma^{2} Vel system, but also offer an exciting opportunity to investigate
the influence of high mass stars on the mass function and circumstellar disc
lifetimes of their lower mass PMS siblings.
