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Alexander Kristoff followed last year’s successful script and launched an early sprint with 350 meters to go, but Mark Cavendish, as he continues to do with his blossoming career, is following his own plan. At stage 3 of the Tour of Ireland from Ballinrobe to Galway, that plan was simple: win. Cavendish was one of many riders to go down on slick tarmac just over the top of the final categorized climb, but Columbia put him back into the front group and wound it up in the closing kilometers to 70kph.

In my last Legally Speaking column, "Bikes vs. Cars," I recounted some of this summer’s more egregious road rage incidents between motorists and cyclists, all of which happened in rapid-fire succession over a period of several weeks.

The 63rd Vuelta a España roars out of Granada on Saturday afternoon in a fitting start with a team time trial in what should be a dogfight between cycling’s two strongest teams and Spain’s two biggest stars. The showdown between Alberto Contador and Carlos Sastre and their respective Astana and CSC-Saxo Bank teams should provide plenty of drama during a three-week course loaded with hard mountains spread judiciously among a long string of sprint-friendly stages.

Editor's Note: The following column was written by Matt Shriver, an Exercise Specialist and Senior Level Coach with Colorado Premier Training. He also is a professional cyclist currently racing with the Jittery Joe's Pro Cycling team.

Team Columbia is bringing a star-studded team to next month's Tour of Missouri, with British speedster Mark Cavendish joining time trialist Michael Rogers and defending Missouri cahmp George Hincapie. The race announced Thursday that the Columbia will bring Rogers and Cavendish, along with the previously announced team roster of Hincapie, Austrian Bernhard Eisel, Canada’s Michael Barry, young Americans John Devine and Craig Lewis, and three-time Italian time trial national champion and Tour of Italy stage winner, Marco Pinotti.

The complete 2008 Tour of Missouri roster:

Women racers from Juniors up to Elites will be racing for the same prize list as the men at Jonathan Page's Planet Bike Cup."Women train as hard, spend as much money traveling to races, and race just as hard as the men," says Renee Callaway, race director. "There's no reason why they shouldn't race for the same prize payout."

Watch LIVE coverage of Tour of Germany, Tour of Missouri, UCI Road World Championships and more on Universal Sports TV and UniversalSports.com Universal Sports will be broadcasting coverage of the Tour of Germany, Tour of Missouri, UCI Univest Cycling Grand Prix, Doylestown Criterium and the coveted UCI Road World Championships all throughout the month of September. Fans can log on to UniversalSports.com or tune into Universal Sports TV for this action packed series of events.

Set aside for the day’s top riders, the winner’s circle in Loughrea served as a photo booth as fans of all ages took turns posing for pictures with Mark Cavendish. The Team Columbia rider again won handily at the Tour of Ireland, in the 158km stage 2 from Thurles to Loughrea, and the popularity of the four-time Tour de France stage winner is only swelling.

USPRO Road Race start list, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008:

Chicago Cyclocross Cup is proud to present the first annual cyclocross clinic on Saturday, September 13 at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). The clinic will be lead by Coach Ben Turner of Cycle-Smart. Ben who will be teaching the techniques and strategies needed for a successful cyclocross season. Ben is the current manager of CLIF BAR Development Cyclo-Cross Team, the top under-25 development cycling program in the country. The schedule will be as follows: 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Beginner New crosser/less than 1 year experience)

Canadian bike maker Cervélo will own and sponsor a new European pro road team next season, tentatively titled the Cervélo TestTeam, although the company may announce a title sponsor in the next few weeks. The company's future with Team CSC-Saxo Bank, which it has supplied since 2002, is uncertain. "That hasn't been determined yet," said spokesman Peter Donato. A press release announcing the new team quotes Cervelo co-founder Gerard Vroomen, speaking as if he had little expectation that the company will supply CSC in 2009.

Cycling team Gerolsteiner has virtually ended all hope of finding a new sponsor and are set to sell off their assets at the end of October, their team manager said on Thursday. In September 2007, the German mineral water manufacturers announced they would not renew their sponsorship at the end of 2008 season and the Gerolsteiner team had been unsuccessfully trying to find a new benefactor.

Thirty-eight year old Eric Zabel will lead the Milram team at the Vuelta a Espana starting Saturday. The German vet will lead an otherwise young team looking for stage wins at the Spanish tour. The team's average age is under 25.

Sastre leads CSC-Saxo Bank

Daniel Martin is sick, but he isn’t sweating it. Actually, he is sweating, quite a bit, as a fever works to burn out the remnants of food poisoning he picked up Sunday at the conclusion of the Tour of Portugal. But the young Irish national champion is continuing to race at the Tour of Ireland. Meanwhile, his teammate Magnus Bäckstedt continues to work through a stomach bug he picked up at the Giro d’Italia in May.

Ben Delaney, VeloNews' Editor in Chief, is a master wordsman, but, by his own description, a Cat. 5 photographer (apologies to our Cat. 5 readers ...). Nevertheless, overcome by the beauty and the sheer Irishness of the countryside on the first day of the Tour of Ireland, the chief sent in this gallery with some behind-the-scenes views of the race. The lad'll be going pro in no time.

After a troubled season, highlighted by the positive doping test of Ricardo Riccò, the team once known as Saunier Duval has lost its second title sponsor in as many months. Scott Bicycles announced Wednesday that it will discontinue its sponsorship of the re-labeled Scott-American Beef cycling team at the end of the 2008 season.