16 Quotes by Erik Zabel

It's a dream come true. I wanted to say farewell to T-Mobile by winning here and I'm delighted I could. The sprint was long and difficult, Bennati kept me on my toes all the way to the finish.

Still, I leave with a lot of good memories and a good number of friends.

It was a hard sprint because Bennati is very strong right now. This is a very emotional moment for me, and for the team in which I have so many friends.

I've got everything I need here to be happy - a solid team, good riders and a great team manager (Stanga).

A perfect scenario for me would be a mass sprint of 14 or 15 riders.

I'm of course not so happy that I didn't ride in the Tour de France and that was my first time that I didn't do the Tour for years. So, it was not so good for me not to ride the Tour, but after my broken ankle in the spring, I was good in the rest of the classics. I also hope to be good for the rest of the season and now I'm a little bit like in the Vuelta, or maybe a little bit better. I'm happy.

I have the possibility of starting fresh with a new team and offering some of my own experience to my new teammates. I'm excited at that prospect.