Johann Tschopp Cyclist
Johann Tschopp (born 1 July 1982 in Sierre) is a Swiss professional road bicycle racer for UCI Professional Continental Team IAM Cycling. He has been a professional since 2004, competing with the Phonak, Bouygues Télécom and BMC Racing Team squads, during which time he has raced twice in the Giro d'Italia. He is an especially good climber since he is lightweight (1.75 m, 60 kg) and his training environment is mainly mountainous. He has already a quite important record in cyclo-cross and mountain bike marathon.In August 2012, Tschopp won the Tour of Utah's overall classification thanks to his victorious performance on the queen stage of the race, the fifth one. He got out of the bunch on the lower slopes of the last climb leading to the Snowbird ski resort, passed all the scattered breakaway riders and crossed the uphill finish with an advantage of 43 seconds on his nearest pursuer. This ride netted him the leader's jersey previously worn by Garmin-Sharp rider Christian Vande Velde. Tschopp and his teammates managed to hold on to the general classification lead on the last trial, stage 6, which was another mountainous affair, and celebrated the victory.Tschopp left BMC Racing Team at the end of the 2012 season, and joined a new team from his native country, the IAM Cycling team for the 2013 season. In the Tour of Oman, he took the sixth place in the general classification of a field that included the likes of Chris Froome, Alberto Contador and Joaquim Rodríguez, who finished ahead of him. In Paris–Nice, Tschopp won the mountains classification jersey thanks to his participation in numerous breakaways. He had a commanding lead at 64 points, 40 points more than his closest rival.In November 2014 Tschopp announced that he would retire from road racing to return to mountain biking in 2015.
