Stage 4 quotes

Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto, 1st)

"When I jumped I jumped really hard I felt I was dying in the last 100 and I didn't dare look around. I just gave it everything.

"We had an ideal preparation for the stage. We stayed the night at Liege and all the riders had their wives and girlfriends staying with them. I had a room with my wife and my young son in the room next door. Maybe we should do that everyday."

How are you going to do it, you'd need another bus? "Yeah, this one's already broken down."

Mark Sergeant (Davitamon-Lotto DS)

"Yes, we were concerned before the start because Freddy and Robbie have a special understanding and Steegmans' role up until today was to get Freddy into the last few kilometres before he took over looking after Robbie. But this was a big task we gave him today and he did it perfectly. He took him to within 200 metres of the finish and then Robbie went.

This is now 10 stage wins in the Tour for Robbie, how do you rate him as a Tour de France sprinter? " Robbie is one of the great sprinters of his time, always in the big races like Le Tour and the Giro. He rose to the occasion here, he likes that environment. It's very good for the team, two stage wins now and we have not had to expend too much energy.

"We'll look at the green jersey at the end of the week but of course have to keep ourselves prepared to support Cadel in the mountains."