The cycling world championships can help reestablish a historical truth: it was Marc Hirschi who shaped Tadej Pogacar’s style. So much so that it would be necessary to say “a Hirschi-style attack” to talk about this new dazzling way of winning in cycling, by daring solitary attacks, from afar, expected but impossible to defuse. Strategy today preempted by the Slovenian runner. But also by the double Olympic champion, the Belgian, Remco Evenepoel or, more occasionally, the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, outgoing world champion.
These three will be the favorites for the “queen” event of the Road Cycling Worlds, the road race contested on Sunday September 29 over 273 kilometers around Zurich (Switzerland). However, at the end of a very hilly event, on the roads of his country, Marc Hirschi, 26 years old, professional within the UAE-Emirates team (that of Tadej Pocacar), but entered on Sunday in the national jersey red and marked with a white cross, could take back threads of light. After four seasons spent half in the shadows. Period of low point, but which allowed him to prepare for his rebound and his revenge.
“Hirschi underperformance, are you kidding me? He’s living his best life. He lets himself be forgotten while everyone thinks he is depressed. This is exactly what he wanted “. One of his former coaches, still attached to the one who is the best current Swiss runner, spoke like this in the spring, an anonymous witness, to break a preconceived idea of the peloton.
One of the revelations of the 2020 Tour de France
The “Hirschi mystery” took shape in 2020, during the “Covid season”, when several young cyclists suddenly came to light – and performance records shattered one by one. Coming out of confinement, the Swiss rider was one of these revelations: stage winner and supercombatant of the Tour de France, alongside Tadej Pogacar, winner of the yellow jersey.
At that time, Marc Hirschi fascinated even more than Tadej Pogacar. For two weeks, until the Slovenian toppled the Tour de France in the time trial at the Planche des Belles Filles (Haute-Saône), “we” only talked about the Swiss.
On September 6, 2020, the runner, who then wore the colors of the Sunweb team, had completed nearly 100 kilometers in the lead in the Pyrenees passes. Before being joined at… 1,100 meters from the finish, in the Laruns valley (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).
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