Cycling Reports

MARK SCANLON: The Newest "New Sean Kelly"

By Gerard Cromwell (Sept 29) It’s been a roller coaster past three years for Ireland’s newest professional cyclist, Mark Scanlon. If 1987 was the year of Stephen Roche, then 1998 was the year of Mark Scanlon. The then 17 year-old Sligoman announced himself to the cycling world with 40 wins that year including the 8-day Junior Tour of Ireland (which he led from start to finish), the Irish National Road Race Championships, the junior Het-Volk Classic and the Arte Vankragge Criterium (both in Holland). He then capped off a perfect year by winning the Junior World Road Race Championships at the end of the season.

“It was pretty tough racing in Holland.” says the teenager as he sits in a friend’s car in Hilltown G.A.A Club’s car park, after finishing 5th in the Irish U/23 Road Race Championship about an hour earlier. “It kinda suited me, you know. If you died, you went backwards and if you were strong, you went forwards, so it suited me down to the ground. When I was a junior, I didn’t really think about the World’s. I rode them the year before and finished 28th and I couldn’t believe how hard it was! But I made such a progression that winter and after the Junior Tour and Het Volk I thought, well I’m going to give the Wolrd’s a good shot.”

Give it a good shot he certainly did. Scanlon, who celebrated his eighteenth birthday on the day, showed not only his physical strength, but his tactical awareness and coolness of head as he refused to give up the rear wheel of his Italian counterpart in the last kilometre, even though the rest of the breakaway group were breathing down the duo’s respective necks. In the final 200 metres, Scanlon surged clear to give Ireland only it’s third World Cycling Champion ever, after Harry Reynolds and Stephen Roche.

That win had every top U/23 squad in Europe looking for the Sligo youngster’s signature for the next season. He was even offered a professional contract by the American Mercury team. Again, his coolness showed through. Where many youngsters would have snatched at a pro contract, Scanlon realised he had to walk before he could run, or cycle in this case and decided he needed at least one year as a Senior before he could join the paid ranks and instead opted for the amateur nursery squad of the top Dutch pro team Rabobank.

The next year with Rabobank got off to a bad start. “At the start of the season, I had two months with a knee injury,” says Scanlon. “I just didn’t get the treatment I should have at Rabobank. I raced a little bit too hard. My first race came after only a weeks training and was 210 miles! I just ended up thrown in at the deep end and wasn’t looked after properly. Rabobank was o.k. The guys were good. The races were good. I just felt that I didn’t get treated properly when I had problems and I was a bit isolated in Holland. I got injured again for the last four months too, so it was a bit of a doom and gloom year!”

The new millennium saw the youngest ever Freeman of Sligo move to the East coast of France to top French club CC Etupes. Here he shares an apartment with the clubs only other U/23 rider, a Pole. “The first few weeks were fairly interesting,” laughs Scanlon. “I couldn’t speak Polish, he couldn’t speak English and neither of us knew much French. We kinda had our own language going. There were dictionary’s flying around the apartment.” Scanlon has nothing but praise for his new club. “It’s a great region for training,” he says. “It’s on the Swiss/French border. The roads are all up and down and then you have the real hills, proper 10k cols too. The riders are very good too. The Directeur Sportifs know a lot. They constantly monitor your diet, your training and your lifestyle. It’s a good place to learn how to be a pro.” He was also more impressed by the medical set-up in Etupes. “At the start of the season, I was only back from the knee injury,” he says. “For my first race, I was only over the Injury about three or four weeks. I felt a niggle in the knee and immediately they had me to two physios and I was getting acupuncture and everything. I mean, I was getting treatment three or four times a week, whereas last year, I went to one guy who put his finger on my knee and told me to stay off the bike for two weeks. That was Rabobank, supposed to be the best team in the world, medically!”

Scanlon’s Y2K started off with a bang. “I won the first race I rode, the Tour de Quatre Cantalons, I don’t know why. Then I won the first stage of my second race, the Boucles des Lessonnes and held the yellow jersey. I was in the top ten almost every week.” Despite his impressive results this season, the affable teenager wasn’t too perturbed at not being selected for this year’s Olympic Road Race. “To be honest,” he says “I wasn’t really geared towards the Olympics this year. I’d rather see someone like Ciaran Power and David McCann, who have only one maybe two Olympics left, ride. I’ll always be there for the next one and hopefully, if I keep progressing the way I’m going, then I’ll be the strongest (Irish rider) for that one.”

Even though Scanlon’s recent bad luck returned when he broke his elbow in France a couple of months ago, his results thus far have earned him a professional contract for next season with the vegetarian Linda McCartney squad, something which he is really looking forward to. “Sean Yates spoke to me after the Junior World’s and again during this season. He’s a pretty good guy. he seems pretty laid back. He knows that I will be barely 20 next year and that I can’t really do much except help the other guys on the team and learn my trade, so I’m happy with that.”

Scanlon will more than likely be based in Toulouse with the other Irishman on the McCartney squad, Ciaran Power. “It’ll be good to ride with Ciaran,” he says. “He has his first year pro behind him and the way I see it is, you know, if I went to a French team (Cyrrille Guimard’s Credit Agricole were rumoured to have offered him a contract) I’d have a problem understanding 100% whatever instructions they’d give me, whereas with Ciaran, he can give me advice as we go along. I think it will be a lot better with Linda McCartney.” The thought of racing against the ‘big boys’ in the pro peleton doesn’t faze the youngster at all. Clearly, like every other part of his career, he has thought it all through already. “It’s going to be an interesting year. It’ll be difficult but at the same time, it’s going to suit me a lot more than this year. Amateur racing is a bit dangerous over there.” He smiles. “Guys would kill each other to win a race, whereas with the professionals it’s more controlled, everybody has a certain job to do, like the domestiques. In the amateur races everybody is out for themselves, everybody is looking for a contract and it’s a bit hectic at times.”

After two stage wins and the points jersey in both the Belfast–Dublin 2-day and the Tour of Hokkaido in Japan, Scanlon makes his first appearance for the McCartney’s at the 3-day Franco - Belge this weekend (29th – 1st) alongside Brian Kenneally in preparation for the U/23 worlds in October. With all of cyclings big stars in Sydney at the moment, I wonder what odds you would get on an Irish stage victory?