"They don't want to use me as a helper on a Grand Tour" - Marc Hirschi not expecting to be involved for UAE Team Emirates in three-week stage races

A key part of the UAE Team Emirates team at the last two editions of the Tour de France, Marc Hirschi will seemingly be absent from the lineup later this year as he's revealed: "They don't want to use me as a helper on a Grand Tour."

A stage winner at the 2020 Tour de France while riding for Team Sunweb, Hirschi was a key cog in the UAE Team Emirates machine that helped Tadej Pogacar retain his Yellow Jersey in 2021. "I'd like to be there, after all, I've won there before," the 24-year-old Swiss rider tells Blick. "They don't want to use me as a helper on a Grand Tour. The idea of ​​the team is that I can ride more on my own and win races that way."

With Hirschi also not included in UAE Team Emirates's preliminary lineup for the upcoming Giro d'Italia, the possibility of him not competing in any three-week stage race in 2023 looks likely. The former La Fleche Wallone winner will be back in the Ardennes and hoping to either repeat his victory from 2020 or, more likely, aide Tadej Pogacar to victory as he did most recently at the Amstel Gold Race.

Following La Fleche Wallone, Hirschi is scheduled for Liege-Bastogne-Liege and then there is a major gap in his calendar with no action pencilled in for nearly four months until the BEMER Cyclassics in Germany on the 20th of August.