Taylor Phinney won a gold medal today. Another might be coming his way soon.

Phinney, the phenom from Boulder, Colo., became a two-time junior world champion on Saturday, winning the 3,000-meter individual pursuit at Cape Town, South Africa. He won the junior men's road time trial last year before turning his attention to the track, and he'll be the U.S. men's best hope for a medal at the Olympic velodrome next month.

Winning another junior world title, he said Saturday, was a perfect tuneup for the Beijing Games.

"It's a big relief for me," Phinney told The Associated Press in a telephone interview shortly after the race. "Any world championship title is really meaningful, so I'm relieved and really happy. It's cool to be a two-time world champion, that's for sure."

Phinney will race the 4,000-meter individual pursuit in Beijing. First, though, comes a chance for more junior world gold: He'll ride the omnium and points race next week in South Africa before the program turns to road events.

Phinney inherited an Olympic legacy from his parents: His father, Davis Phinney, was an Olympian and a stage winner at the Tour de France, and his mother, Connie Carpenter-Phinney, won a gold medal at the Olympics in 1984.

It's been an extremely busy year for the Phinney clan. First Taylor, who was 17 at the time, clinched his Olympic berth, and then Davis — who was diagnosed several years ago with early onset Parkinson's disease — underwent deep brain stimulation to combat the condition's effects. He had pacemakers embedded in his brain in May, and has made remarkable improvement since, enough so that he made the trip to South Africa to see his son win on Saturday.

"Taylor was really hoping to have a good result here, but you never know who was coming and what form they'd have, and it's a long way to travel," Carpenter-Phinney, who also was an Olympian in speedskating before she became serious about cycling, said after the race. "It was hard to know what would happen. But obviously, we have a lot of pride in Taylor and also a big sense of relief."

Taylor Phinney said having his father there for the win added to its significance.

"I know seeing me do well gives him a big boost of energy," Taylor said.

He's taking these races seriously, but clearly, the big goal for this summer is the Olympics. The junior world events fit perfectly into the training schedule Team Phinney has laid out, and no one in his camp believes it'll keep him from being at his absolute best in China next month.

Phinney said if anything, getting more wins adds to his confidence.

"I'm definitely not at a peak right now," Phinney said. "I wasn't at a peak when I set the world record, either. There's really good things to come if we can control my training exactly the way we want it, because if we do that, when I get to Beijing I should be going super fast. That's the plan."