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Canberra's Nathan Haas is set to make a stunning debut in the top league of cycling by racing for his new first division Garmin-Cervelo team in the Tour Down Under in Adelaide in January.

Haas, 22, didn't know his 2012 program before Saturday's 262km Melbourne to Warrnambool classic in which he finished second at 13sec to his Genesys Wealth Advisers teammate Joel Pearson of Queensland.

Yet when asked about the prospect of being picked by Garmin-Cervelo for the Tour Down Under that opens the World Tour circuit, the Canberran said, ''What a great way to start - at the Tour Down Under if I get a spot.''

Garmin-Cervelo sports director Allan Peiper has since confirmed Haas, who has dominated the National Road Series and won the recent Herald Sun Tour and Japan Cup races, would race in the six-stage race.

Haas and the Genesys Wealth Advisers team enjoyed a fairytale season end in Victoria on the weekend. Saturday's one-two by Pearson and Haas in the Melbourne to Warrnambool, and West Australian teammate Anthony Giacoppo's win in the Shipwreck Coast Classic were brilliant.

But as physically and tactically apt as Haas is, it is clear he also has the street nous needed for the World Tour as he revealed when recounting how a wary 2010 Giro d'Italia winner Ivan Basso (Liquigas) tried to glean information about him before the Japan Cup last Sunday week.

''[Basso] said, 'What are you guys like? You did well at the Herald Sun Tour, but were there many climbs?''' Haas said.

''I said, 'There was one day of climbing, but I wouldn't say it was a pure climbers' course.'

''So he goes, 'What are you good at?'

''I said, 'To be honest, our team is more of a fast criterium team. So we don't really know how we are going to go in this climb [in the race].'

''He goes, 'Okay, okay, okay.'

''Then at the end of the race he comes up and shakes my hand and gives me this really serious look and goes, 'You lied to me. You said you were all sprinters. Well done ...' It was quite funny how he did it. I didn't want to say I was feeling good on the climb or anything, or have him thinking that I intended to do anything.''

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So the road season for 2011 is coming to a close and as a positive season wraps up for another year I am left to ponder all the final few months of training and racing.

The week consisted of a 90km road race, a pairs time trial and a 1hour criterion. The road race shaped up to be a hard day in the wind and rain. Early on the brake went and due to the wind the field on 60 split early. After battling away I managed to get 15th with Blair battling for fourth.

In the pair time trial Blair and I struggled out of bed for a 6am start on the main streets of the Gold Coast. The length was 30km and we missed a medal by 40seconds. We got 4th on the morning however with the form and late night we were pretty happy to just wake up.

The crit saw a very quick pace early on and many in the field dropped out before the first half. My legs were going along OK however I managed to miss the brake again, however Blair Windsor was in the top three. After an hour Blair sprinted and grabbed a silver medal.

Considering the lack of representatives for our university we were very happy to come away with a few top ten finishes and a medal.

Over the next few months I will be getting ready for the bay crits in Geelong and the results will be posted shortly after

Zach Baker   

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Team Sky's top mountain domestique, Chris Froome, has taken over the mantle of team leader in the Vuelta a España, closing the gap on the race leader, Juan José Cobo, by winning the most difficult finish of the final week with an audacious double attack in the finale on the Peña Cabarga climb above the port of Santander in northern Spain.

Meanwhile the rider who has been the Sky No1 since the start of the race, Bradley Wiggins, lost 39 seconds on both men, effectively ending his challenge for the overall title, although the Olympic champion remains in third overall. It was a reversal of fortunes that was not entirely surprising, given that Froome had been the stronger of the two Sky men on the race's toughest mountain-top finish at the Alto de L'Angliru on Sunday.

Froome finished only a single second ahead of Cobo on top of the short, brutal ascent but he earned a 20-second deduction in the overall standings thanks to a time bonus awarded to the stage winner. After putting Cobo under immense pressure in the final 1500m, the Sky rider looked to have failed when the Spaniard caught and passed him but he had the presence of mind and reserve of strength to take the inside line on the final corner, yards before the finish line on the top of the hill, catching the race leader by surprise. Cobo also gained a time bonus, 12 seconds for finishing just behind Froome, but with further bonuses available before Sunday's finish in Madrid, and more hills in the next three days in the Basque Country, the suspense is set to last to the end.

It was surprising that the Kenya-born Froome was able to think clearly, given the intensity of his initial attack on the steepest section of the climb, which rears up at one-in-five in the final part. It had taken him around 15 seconds to dislodge Cobo, who initially marked the Sky man's pace, before Froome opened a gap of about 15 bike lengths entering the final kilometre and briefly raised the prospect that he might deprive the Spaniard of the race lead in front of his home crowd.

But Cobo sensibly opted to ride at his own pace, gradually closing the gap and eventually looking as if he might be able to take the stage. Instead Froome rode to the finest win of a career that began in mountain biking in South Africa, where he was brought up, and then saw him turn to the road with the Barloworld team in 2008, when he took British nationality.

"That was indescribable," Froome said after the finish. "It was one of the hardest days on the bicycle of my life. It was the last mountain-top finish and both Bradley and myself came into the stage trying to do as much as we could. But as you could see, Cobo was so strong."

His performance on Wednesday is bound to prompt questions about Sky's decision to use him to set the pace on several occasions during Wiggins's tenure of the red leader's jersey, the more so as Froome had finished ahead of his leader in the race's only individual time trial, on stage 10. He finished second to the German Tony Martin, 23 seconds ahead of Wiggins, which was enough to put him in the race lead before he ceded the red jersey to Wiggins on a mountain-top finish 48 hours later.

The last Briton to contend for overall honours in the Vuelta, Robert Millar, said that he wondered about Sky's tactics. "They've stuck with Brad as team leader because he has the pedigree and the proven successes but there is the question Froome's performance raises of what if the tactics had been different. What if they had used him differently, for example the day Bradley took over the red jersey [stage 11] and Froome did a massive amount of work despite being race leader because that's been the only occasion where he lost any time to his team leader."

Tour of Spain Stage 17 (Faustino V – Pena Cabarga, 211 km) results

1. Chris Froome (GB/Team Sky) 4:52:38"; 2. Juan-José Cobo (Sp/Geox) +1"; 3. Bauke Mollema (Neth/Rabobank) +21"; 4. Daniel Martin (Irel/Garmin) +24"; 5. Igor Anton (Sp/Euskaltel) +27"; 6. Mikel Nieve (Sp/Euskaltel); 7. Marzio Bruseghin (It/Movistar) +29"; 8. Jurgen Van den Broeck (Bel/Omega Pharma – Lotto) +31"; 9. Denis Menchov (Rus/Geox); 10. Benat Intxausti (Sp/Movistar) +35"