The Fading Star: Has Marc Hirschi's window already closed?

When Hirschi arrived at Tudor Pro Cycling Team for 2025, the narrative felt almost scripted. The Swiss rider returning home, reuniting with mentor Fabian Cancellara, finally getting the leadership role he'd been denied at UAE Team Emirates. He opened with a win at the Clàssica Comunitat Valenciana in January, and for a moment, it seemed like the script would hold. But that was it. One victory in 73 race days. The rest of 2025 became an exercise in near misses and quiet disappearances.

The numbers tell a stark story. Second at the Swiss national championships. Second at Gran Piemonte. A handful of top-ten finishes scattered through the year. When Tudor finally secured their wildcard entry to the Tour de France, when the spotlight arrived, Hirschi simply wasn't there. At the Ardennes Classics, the races that should suit a rider of his profile, he couldn't produce. The legs, as he admitted himself, never arrived.

This wasn't supposed to be how things went. In that strange, pandemic-delayed season of 2020, Hirschi looked like cycling's next star. A Tour de France stage win. Bronze at the World Championships in Imola. Victory at La Flèche Wallonne, the first Swiss winner since Ferdinand Kübler in 1952. Runner-up at Liège–Bastogne–Liège. 

It was the kind of breakthrough that gets you moved to UAE Team Emirates mid-contract, that gets your name whispered alongside the sport's elite.

What followed instead was four years of drift. One win in 2021. A modest collection of victories in 2022 and 2023, mostly in smaller Italian races. Then 2024 offered hope again: nine victories, including WorldTour wins at San Sebastián and the Bretagne Classic. Second at Amstel Gold Race. Sixth at the World Championships in Zürich while his teammate Pogačar rode to victory. It looked like the trajectory had finally corrected.

But 2025 revealed that 2024 might have been the exception, not the rule. At ProTeam level with Tudor, away from the resources and infrastructure of a WorldTour superteam, Hirschi found himself exposed. When opportunities came at smaller races, he couldn't capitalize. When bigger races arrived, he couldn't compete. Michael Storer, a domestique for most of his career, scored more points for Tudor than their marquee signing.

The question now isn't whether Hirschi can recapture his 2020 form. At 27, in a sport where many riders hit their peak between 26 and 30, the question is whether that version of Marc Hirschi ever really existed, or whether it was a brief flash produced by unique circumstances. The empty roads and compressed calendar of the COVID season created opportunities that don't exist in normal years. 

Perhaps what we saw in 2020 wasn't Hirschi's ceiling but his one perfect moment.

Hirschi has already mapped out his 2026 season. The Ardennes Classics with Julian Alaphilippe. His first Giro d'Italia. The World Championships in Montreal. On paper, these are the right targets for a puncheur looking to prove himself. But the sport has moved on while Hirschi has remained static. The new generation - riders like Isaac del Toro, who beat him at Gran Piemonte while casually notching UAE's 92nd win of the season - aren't waiting for veterans to find their form.

There's something almost cruel about how Hirschi's career has unfolded. The expectations built in 2020 weren't unreasonable. They were based on actual results at the highest level. But expectations don't care about illness at Tirreno-Adriatico or crashes at the Volta ao Algarve or the reality that most riders never sustain breakthrough-level performances. They just sit there, year after year, growing heavier.

Hirschi himself seems to understand this. His assessment of 2025 was measured. 'Sometimes it was pretty good, but I was never at my peak. So overall, I'm not 100% satisfied with the season.' 

The freedom at Tudor is great, but in the end, what counts is the legs. It's the kind of statement that sounds like acceptance rather than determination. At 27, a rider should be fighting to reach their peak, not wondering if they already left it behind five years ago.

The cycling world moves fast. Too fast, perhaps, for riders like Hirschi who showed brilliance once and then couldn't maintain it. In 2026, the expectations will be lower, which might be exactly what he needs. But lower expectations also mean fewer opportunities, smaller races, less support. It's a difficult cycle to break, and Hirschi is running out of time to break it.