Marc Hirschi's brief, incredible professional cycling career defies simple categorization, especially now that he's winning again.
As I watched Hirschi race his first Tour de France in 2020 with a remarkable combination of enthusiasm, idiosyncrasy, and occasional brilliance, I thought I was watching the nascent form of someone sure to develop into not only one of the best but the most exciting riders in all of men's road cycling. As he immediately backed that stage win up with a win at La Flèche Wallonne and ascended the podium at Worlds and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, I wondered if he wasn't already there. As he parlayed his breakout 2020 into a huge contract with UAE, then spent the following three years more or less invisible, I scarcely thought of him at all.
But in the past month, Hirschi has suddenly become unbeatable. That's not hyperbolic: Hirschi has won every single one of the past five races he's started, a staggering run that began at the Donostia Klasikoa and extended to five at this past weekend's Memorial Marco Pantani. In between those two races, he won the Bretagne Classic, the GP Industria & Artigianato, and the Coppa Sabatini, and he also flashed his winning form by taking a stage and the overall victory at the surprisingly competitive Czech Tour shortly before going to San Sebastian.
That Hirschi is back on the top step of the podium is exciting; what is even more thrilling is how many different ways he's gotten there. In order, he won his five races by: dusting Julian Alaphilippe in a two-rider sprint; slipping free on a descent and soloing in; making a huge attack on a late climb; converting a 37-kilometer solo attack; and, finally, winning a sprint from a reduced bunch. That sort of range is extremely rare in the modern peloton.
As Kit Nicholson noted, the Hirschi comeback started last season, when he silently finished ninth in the end-of-year UCI rankings. Though his 2023 was a successful points-getting campaign, it scarcely registered to most fans. Hirschi, now on a team without free Tour de France spots to give away to stage hunters, wasn't winning anything that really mattered, instead steadily racking up points winning the Tours of Hungary and Luxembourg and finishing in the top 10 of what felt like every single 1.1 race in Europe. All that is great if you are UAE team management—they found a way to keep a rider who is essentially We have Tadej Pogačar at home! from being redundant to the genuine article—though sort of a bummer outcome for a rider who flashed the potential Hirschi did in his early days as a professional.
When Hirschi won the 2018 U-23 Euro and Worlds double, as a soloist and sprinter, then finished on the podium in San Sebastian in 2019, you could see the outlines of a great classic rider; when he moved to UAE, multiplying his salary 14 times over, in a shock move right after the 2020 Tour, you could see him winning huge for the biggest team in the world. Instead, Pogačar won huge and Hirschi lost his way. Did he get worse? Perhaps, though I think the lesson of Hirschi's rise and fall and rise is that winning any bike race is a statistical improbability, and unless you are Tadej Pogačar, your fortunes are always subject to slings and arrows. Hirschi went four years between winning World Tour races, and now he's seventh in the UCI rankings, with some actual big results to boost his always-reliable dominance in smaller one-day races.
All of this is especially exciting given what the immediate future holds for Hirschi, who is going home in a number of senses. The forthcoming World Championships are in Switzerland, less than 100 kilometers from Hirschi's hometown, and he looks like he'll be the featured rider for a very strong Swiss team on a course that seems suited to his talents. Next year, he'll escape Pogačar's shadow and go home to join the Swiss Tudor team, under the tutelage of his mentor Fabian Cancellara. He will be free, and though he'll still be subject to the cruel whims of luck, he will have more chances at Tudor to roll the dice.
