By Arman Armero

SENAWANG, Malaysia?Mattia Gavazzi of last year?s champion team Diquigiovanni-Androni emerged the fastest in a bunched finish to capture Stage 1 honors and two other awards in an uneventful race traversed along flat, well-paved roads spanning 133.8 kilometers.

The 25-year-old Italian actually reached the finish line in three hours, six minutes and .42 seconds, towing practically all the finishers and winning the race by a wheel to also grab both the yellow jersey (individual classification on time) and the green jersey (individual classification on points).

Dmitriv Gruzdev of Kazakhstan, who also had the same clocking, clinched the blue jersey as the top Asian rider after Stage 1, while Jaco Venter of the South Africa team grabbed King of the Mountain honors and will wear the polka dot jersey going into Stage 2.

?The race went very well. We did exactly what we wanted to do. We just hope to keep on winning on the next stages, but I?m sure the other riders will be watching me starting tomorrow [Stage 2],? said Gavazzi through an interpreter.

Also making it to the Top 10 of the Stage Classification were Chris Sutton of Australia (2nd); Nolan Hoffman of South Africa (3rd); Tiziano Dall?Antonia of CSF Group Navigare (4th), Hossein Nateghi of Iran (5th); Daniel Musiol of Vorarlberg-Corratec (6th); Ahmad Haidar Anuawar of the Malaysian National Team (7th); Rafaa Chtioui of Doha Team (8th); Miyataka Shimizu of EQA-Meitan Hompo-Graphite Design (9th) and Anuar Manan, also of Malaysia (10th).

Venter was actually part of a three-man early breakaway group which included Gruzdev and Malaysian Mohd Akmal Amrun of the MNCF Cycling Team that stuck together through the towns of Semenyeh in Selangor and halfway through the race in Mantin, Negrisembembilen, but the main pack caught them in the final 10 km for a big finish in the stretch.

Amrun later finished behind Venter in the King of the Mountain Classification Round with a bonus points of plus-2 to the South African?s plus-4 total.

?We?re happy with the win, but we need to race better in the next stage if we want to keep the lead. The other riders should also pick up the pace,? said Gianni Savio, team manager of Diquigiovanni-Androni, referring to his top rider and last year?s King of the Mountain Jose Rodolfo Serpa Perez and sprinter Carlos Ochoa, who both opted to stay with the big group when the trio of Venter, Gruzdev and Amrun broke away early in the race.