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Victory follows his U-23 World Championship win in Australia. Austria's Osl takes top spot in women's cross-country.

Damiano Cunego’s second stage victory at this year’s Vuelta a España shows he’ll be one of the riders to beat at the world championships later this month at Mendrisio. His dramatic win up the steep La Pandera climb ahead of Jakob Fuglsang (Saxo Bank) only fuels his ambitions ahead of the worlds. “The worlds is the top goal for me and the Vuelta is ideal preparation,” Cunego said. “These victories at the Vuelta confirm that I am enjoying good form right now and I will carry that into the worlds.”

American Tejay van Garderen wrapped up an excellent Tour de l’Avenir with second place overall in the nine-stage U23 race across northern France. Despite a challenging circuit in Besançon in Sunday’s final stage, there was no shaking race winner Romain Sicard (France A). Dutch rider Van Winden won the stage. Van Garderen’s second overall was the best U.S. result at the prestigious Avenir race since Kevin Livingston was second to Frenchman Laurent Roux in 1997.

Dutch rider Marianne Vos clinched the overall title in the women’s World Cup after finishing sixth in the season finale at the Tour de Nuremberg. Compatriot Kirsten Wild won the sprint and Vos only needed to finish with the favorites to lock up her second World Cup crown of her career. The 26-year-old Wild won the 129km race ahead of Rochelle Gilmore, with Germany’s Ina-Yoko Teutenberg crossing the line third. Emma Johannson was the only threatening rider to Vos, but couldn’t get ahead of Vos and crossed the line 13th to finish second overall in World Cup points.

Australia's Chris Sutton surrendered the yellow jersey at the end of the second stage of the Tour of Britain on Sunday but still insisted his weekend could not have gone any better. The Garmin-Slipstream rider followed-up his first stage win with ninth place on day two from Darlington to Gateshead as Dutchman Kai Reus (Rabobank), a former junior world champion, won his first stage since a 2007 crash that left him in a coma. Reus' comfortable nine-second margin of victory was enough to earn him yellow and Sydney's Sutton admitted his opening exploits in York had taken their toll.

Damiano Cunego (Lampre) collected his second win of the 2009 Vuelta a España on Sunday atop the Alto Sierra de la Pandera. Cunego jumped away from a crumbling nine-man break to climb the Pandera alone to victory as the battle for the overall was fought behind him. Fellow breakaway Jacob Fuglsang (Saxo Bank) hung on for second at 2:23, with a resurgent Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) third at 3:08.

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A teammate might have been wearing the leader’s yellow jersey, but Volodymyr Starchyk knew he was the strongest at the Univest Grand Prix on Saturday. The Ukrainian attacked a leading group of six — including his Amore & Vita-Detweiler Hershey & Associates teammate, German Philipp Mamos — on the last of 10 three-mile finishing circuits, then hung on to take the race victory and the overall title in the two-day UCI event.

Francesco Chicchi (Liquigas) came from behind on Saturday to win a bunch sprint in stage 6 of the Tour of Missouri, sweeping around Thor Hushovd (Cervelo) and Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Colavita) in the final meters to win a Missouri stage for the second year in a row. Garmin-Slipstream's Dave Zabriskie "rode a wave of attacks" to preserve his overall lead headed into what race organizers promise is a difficult final stage on Sunday in Kansas City.

Everyone has his own way of killing time on the lengthy drive that we've just begun to the start of stage 6.

Cadel Evans just can’t seem to catch a break this season. The Australian’s chances of overall victory were torpedoed Saturday with an ill-timed puncture near the top of the decisive Alto de Monachil climb late in the five-climb 13th stage. Confusion over a wheel change cost Evans critical seconds and he lost contact with the top GC rivals just as the leaders were nearing the final charge up to the summit finish at Sierra Nevada.

America’s Tejay van Garderen narrowly missed victory in Saturday’s individual time trial at the Tour de l’Avenir, finishing second on the stage en route to climbing into second place overall. Race leader Romain Sicard (France A) confirmed his grip on the overall with a narrow, three-second victory in the 27km time trial course in Ornans. Russian rider Timofey Kritskiy, who started the day second, crashed out of the race with a broken leg and other serious cuts.

Matthew Goss (Saxo Bank) proved fastest in a bunch sprint on Saturday to win the 217.6km Paris-Brussels. The Australian crossed ahead of compatriot Allan Davis (Quick Step) and Belgium's Kristof Goddaert (Topsport Vlaanderen) to take the victory in the 89th annual classic. It was the 23-year-old Goss's fifth win of the season and his third in Belgium after two stage triumphs on the Tour de Wallonie during the summer. "It was a difficult sprint especially towards the end when it was vital not to go too early," said Goss.

Australia's Chris Sutton (Garmin-Slipstream) sealed the biggest win of his career by claiming the first stage of the Tour of Britain with a sprint finish victory in York on Saturday. Sutton, the nephew of British track cycling coach Shane Sutton, held off Barloworld's Michel Merlo and home riders Ben Swift and Russell Downing following a 172km stage from Scunthorpe to Newcastlegateshead. And he paid tribute to Garmin teammate Bradley Wiggins, fourth in the Tour de France earlier this year, for his stellar lead-out efforts.

David Moncoutie (Cofidis) padded his lead in the mountains competition by winning stage 13 of the 2009 Vuelta a Espana on Saturday. The mountains leader was the lone survivor of a break that formed up on the day’s first climb, and he set about taking the points on each of the next four categorized ascents before finally riding off the front of the crumbling break to solo in for the victory at the ski resort of Sierra Nevada, above the city of Granada.

Grega Bole of Slovenia kicked off the 22nd CISM World Military Cycling Championships by winning the time trial on Friday in Clonmel, Ireland. The 24-year-old, who recently signed a contract to race for Lampre in 2010, blitzed the 20.52km course in a time of 24 minutes and 16 seconds — just seven seconds off the record for the same course set by Sean Kelly in the 1986 Nissan Classic. German teammates Stefan Schaefer and Robert Bengsch were second and third, respectively. The top three were the only riders to crack the 25-minute mark.

Laughter resounds through the camper as Mark’s joke carries from the back to the front where George, who is at the brunt of it, sits. On the puffy pleather couches and fabric chairs we lounge in our cycling shorts, waiting until the last minute, like school kids, before heading to the start. Our radios dangle from our ears, our jerseys are piled along with our helmets and race food ready to be pulled on at the very last minute.

After four days of racing that left the first two riders tied and the first 85 riders within one minute of the leader, the 2009 Tour of Missouri finally took shape Friday in the stage 5 time trial. Garmin-Slipstream's David Zabriskie demolished the field, taking the stage victory and the yellow jersey on the same day his teammate Ryder Hesjedal took a historic stage win at the Vuelta a Espana.

After a break of six weeks, action resumes this weekend at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Champéry, Switzerland. On the start line will be newly crowned World Champions Nino Schurter and Irina Kalentieva.

The Italian Amore & Vita Detweiler Hershey & Associates team put Philip Mamos into the leader’s jersey of the Univest Grand Prix on Friday with a victory in the stage-1 team time trial. The TTT in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a first for the Univest GP, was two laps of a 3.8-mile course that featured several turns and a technical section near the end that included a short, steep climb.

Tire talk consumes an inordinate amount of conversational time when one engages with an off-road bicycle racer. What is Barry Wicks running right now? The best (even if it's all in his mind)!

Tom Danielson is licking his lips ahead of Saturday’s decisive climbing stage to Sierra Nevada in the 13th stage at the Vuelta a España. The route will retrace some of the roads over the Cat. 1 Alto de Monachil where he attacked three years ago to claim his biggest win of his career into Granada during the 2006 Vuelta. Danielson has twice finished in the top 10 at the Vuelta, but is now poised to make a run for the final podium — or perhaps even more.

Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Slipstream) made history Friday when he became the first Canadian to win a stage at the Vuelta a España. Hesjedal also delivered Garmin’s second consecutive stage victory at the Vuelta with a gutsy late-stage performance up the grueling Velefique climb. Hesjedal spoke exclusively to VeloNews following his emotional stage victory. Here are excerpts from his post-stage reaction: VeloNews: Describe your feelings coming across the line.