Colombian rookie José Serpa, 26, was racing as an amateur two weeks ago. Now, just five days into his career as a professional with the Selle Italia-Diquigiovanni team, he has won two stages of the Tour de Langkawi — including Tuesday’s prestigious ascent to Genting Highlands.

Serpa’s two stage wins have impressed the whole race entourage, including Ed Beamon, Navigators Insurance team manager, who told VeloNews that “Serpa would surely be the race favorite had he not missed the break on the first day.”

Perhaps the rider with the most experience of riding the giant hors-catégorie Genting climb is South African David George, who placed second to Colombian winner Hernan Muñoz four years ago and last year helped his teammate Ryan Cox pull of the stage (and overall) victory.

This year, Cox returned the favor, helping his South African teammates control the pace for George on the long, mostly uphill approach to the 12km climb until, according to Beamon, the Selle Italia and Crédit Agricole teams “blew the field apart at the base of the Genting access road.”

While Navigators’ Mark Walters helped his well-placed Colombian teammate Cesar Grajales make it into the final selection, American Saul Raisin — the stage 3 winner — did the same for his team’s GC hope Crédit Agricole, the Italian Francesco Bellotti.

“Raisin was brilliant again today,” Beamon said, “He was Bellotti’s key lieutenant and paced him through much of the climb, fighting back a couple of times after being dropped.”

The efforts made by Raisin were enough to drop George’s closest threat, second-placed Gabriele Missaglia of Selle Italia, the Langkawi winner eight years ago, with 6km remaining. Missaglia would lose more than a minute to George by the summit but hung on to his second place, almost two minutes back.

When the veteran Italian fell off the pace, his Selle Italia teammate Serpa, who won Monday’s stage, jumped away, while Raisin moved into a seven-man chasing group, which also included Bellotti, Grajales, George and Selle Italia’s other threat, Walter Pedraza.

“I was feeling good all day,” said Serpa, “[but] when Missaglia was dropped … I had no choice but to attack for the win.”

The last 5km of the climb were new this year, and, said Beamon, “even steeper than past editions.” Serpa reveled in the steepness and by the finish, 5500 feet above the stage start in Kuala Lumpur, he was 1:18 ahead of the chasers — who were led home by Spanish climber José Elias of Relax-Gam, with Italian youngster Massimo Iannetti of Team LPR in third, neither of whom are well-placed on GC.

Previous winners of the Genting Highlands stage include the Italian climbers Giuliano Figueras (1998) and Paolo Lanfranchi (2001), while Paolo Bettini (2001) and Tom Danielson (2003) have both finished top three at Genting.

Grajales crossed in sixth at 1:39, George seventh at 1:41 and Raisin eight at 2:08. “Cesar was strong,” Beamon said about his star climber, “and tried a few good attacks, as did Bellotti and Pedraza, but David George was rock solid.”

Serpa’s second consecutive stage win moved him to eighth overall, at 4:44,while Raisin is now in 11th, 7:49 behind leader George. With five stages remaining, including a 16km time trial, the South African national team is sure to close ranks around George, who has a two-minute cushion on Missaglia and Bellotti. But Serpa, who won the time-trial stage at last month’s Vuelta al Tachira in Venezuela, may still spring some surprises.

Wednesday’s stage 6 from Shah Alam to Tampin has two climbs in the opening 55km, but the rest of the 178.7km stage is mostly flat. “The stage will be difficult,” said Beamon. “I think it will be hard to control, so there should be more fireworks. The race is definitely not over, and we’ll try to find Cesar some more time before Saturday’s time trial.”