Johann Tschopp
Personal information
Tschopp at the 2006 Deutschland Tour.
Full name	Johann Tschopp
Born	(1982-07-01) 1 July 1982 (age 41) Sierre, Switzerland
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	62 kg (137 lb)
Team information
Discipline	Road Cyclo-cross MTB
Role	Rider
Rider type	Climbing specialist
Professional teams
2004–2006	Phonak
2007–2010	Bouygues Télécom
2011–2012	BMC Racing Team
2013–2014	IAM Cycling^[1]

Major wins
National Mountain Bike Marathon Championships (2005) Giro d'Italia 1 stage Tour of Utah (2012)

Johann Tschopp (born 1 July 1982 in Sierre) is a Swiss professional mountain bike racer.^[2] He previously competed as a professional road bicycle racer between 2004 and 2014, competing with the Phonak, Bouygues Télécom, BMC Racing Team and IAM Cycling squads.^[1] He is noted as 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.

Career

2012 season

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.^[3] 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.^[4]

2013 season

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.^[1] 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.^[5] 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.^[6]