FAST TRACK TO THE TOP

In terms of emerging talent, this year’s Tour has thrown the spotlight on Marc Hirschi, the former world U23 champ managed by countryman Fabian Cancellara, writes Peter Cossins

- Peter Cossins

Team Sunweb’s pre-Tour announcement that they wouldn’t be bringing sprinter and 2017 green jersey winner Michael Matthews to the race looked to be an odd choice. Having lost team leader Tom Dumoulin to Jumbo-Visma at the end of the 2019 season, the punchy Australian, who has won stages in all three Grand Tours, appeared the obvious replacement as the squad’s standard-bearer. Without him, how would Sunweb contend and where would the wins come from?

The answer came on the opening weekend. On day one in Nice, young sprinter Cees Bol finished third in the bunch sprint on the Promenade des Anglais. The following day, Tour debutant Marc Hirschi was a very close runner-up to Julian Alaphilippe on the same majestic boulevard. This pattern continued over the course of the first week, Bol creeping closer to a stage win thanks to Sunweb’s youthful but extremely well-drilled lead-out train, Hirschi denied an audacious breakaway win in the Pyrenees due to the very late intervention of the GC favourites.

On the race’s longest stage to Sarran, everything finally fell into place for Sunweb, and deservedly so, when Hirschi used experienced team-mates Tiesj Benoot and Søren Kragh Andersen as a launchpad for an exceptional solo victory. After two near-misses, the 22-year-old Swiss was overcome by a success that marked him out as the latest member of the new generation of precocious talents who look set to dominate the sport over the next decade.