Everything about Marc Hirschi

Who is Marc Hirschi?

Marc Hirschi is a Swiss professional cyclist who currently races for Tudor Pro Cycling Team. He is one of the most prominent classics riders of the 2020's decade having won a stage at the Tour de France and one-day races such as the Flèche Wallonne, Clásica San Sebastián and Bretagne Classic.

Name: Marc Hirschi
Born: 14 August 1998
Place of birth: Bern, Switzerland
Turned pro: 2018
Height: 1.74m

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Marc Hirschi won the 2024 Clásica San Sebastián. @Sirotti

Marc Hirschi was born in Bern, Switzerland, and has become one of the central European nation's best ever riders. Inspired by compatriot and local hero Fabian Cancellara, Hirschi became fond of cycling in his youth years and quickly became an apparent outlier within the peloton. In both 2015 and 2016 he won the Swiss junior national championships, whilst winning several other races at national and international level.

In 2017 he signed with the BMC Development Team where he teamed up with other huge talents such as Jasper Philipsen, Pavel Sivakov, Steff Cras and several others who reached World Tour level. It was a top development team but he still stood out, taking his first pro win at the Tour du Jura and winning the under-23 time-trial nationals. But the team disbanded and in 2018 he joined Sunweb's (named DSM in the future) development team... Here he won the European Continental Championships and later in the year, in Innsbruck, he won the under-23 World Championships, a course suited to the climbers where he beat Bjorn Lambrecht and Jaakko Hänninen with a solo win - Tadej Pogacar being 7th on that day.

Like Pogacar, Hirschi would turn pro in 2019 with Sunweb, where he took a few months to adapt but later in the year his talents as a classics rider became very clear. He finished third at the Clásica San Sebastián and then fifth at the BinckBank Tour. 2020 was his breakthrough year, where the Swiss rider made his Tour de France debut and made a huge impression on stage 9. Despite not being a climber, he climbed the best out of all breakaway riders as the likes of Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar attacked each other behind and chased him down. Hirschi would finish that iconic day (Pogacar's first Tour win) in third place but on stage 12 he found himself off the front again and this time around won for the first time in a Grand Tour.

A week later Hirschi had his best form and finished third at the World Championships in Imola, joining Julian Alaphilippe and Jakob Fuglsang. Only a few days later he travelled to Belgium and won his first big classic at Fléche Wallone, beating Benoît Cosnefroy and Michael Woods atop the Mur de Huy. He completed the season with another impressive result at Liège-Bastogne-Liège where he was second to Primoz Roglic. But his stint with DSM would end there, as 5 days after the 2021 season started, he (like several others over the years) broke his contract with the Dutch team. He was signed by UAE Team Emirates.

However this wasn't right away a successful signing. Hirschi was 6th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège but this would be his only result of the spring. He helped Pogacar to a Tour de France win but was rather absent from the action, this was only the case again when he finished 6th at the European Championships. Hirschi won for the first time with the team at the Tour of Luxembourg where he then finished second in the GC. In 2022 Hirschi would win Per Sempre Alfredo and finish on the Top10 of Amstel Gold Race and LBL in the spring. His Tour de France performance was disappointing but in the Italian Autumn classics he showed his talent by winning the Giro della Toscana and Veneto Classic.

UAE understood this was a rider to focus on the classics and short stage-races, and so in 2023 and 2024 Hirschi was used to score wins and UCI points. In 2023 he was largely absent from the action during the spring but then bounced back to win the Tour de Hongrie. He later won the Giro dell'Appennino, the Swiss national championships and the Prueba Villafranca. The Swiss rider would still win the Coppa Sabatini and the GC at the Tour Luxembourg that fall, but would also score top results in several other classics.

In 2024 he had a similar calendar, with the same goals, but more success. Hirschi returned to his best form and took 9 wins during the season. The first was at the Faun Drõme Classic, he was then second at Amstel Gold Race, but the remaining 8 wins all took place within two and a half months. It started off with a stage and GC win at the Czech Tour, and then consecutively won five one-day races.

He beat Julian Alaphilippe to win the Clásica San Sebastián, then outsmarted the peloton to win the Bretagne Classic, and then won three Italian classics (GP Industria & Artigianato; Coppa Sabatini and Memorial Marco Pantani). Hirschi still won the Coppa Agostoni later in the year and also finished 6th at his World Championships in Zurich, close to home.