Nine years ago Sligoman Mark Scanlon won the Junior World Road Race Championships and seemed destined for a very strong professional career in cycling. He showed he has the ability to succeed but, for a variety of reasons, decided to turn his back on top-level racing.
Family, friends and being at home in Sligo are his priorities now although, as he tells Shane Stokes, a return to competition at some point in the future is not out of the question.
BACK in July 2004, Mark Scanlon became the first Irishman in eleven years to ride the Tour de France, completing what is arguably the toughest event in world sport.
It was an important step. A young rider’s first Tour is about building strength and experience, and completing that debut is regarded as a gateway to bigger and better things in the years ahead.
Three years on, the Sligoman, 26, is facing an uncertain future in the sport. In recent weeks articles have circulated in the media stating that Scanlon has announced his retirement from cycling. While he says that there have been inaccuracies in some of the stories and that he could possibly return to competition in the future, it is clear that things have taken a very different path than what was expected.
“I think was an accumulation of things, really,” he told the Sligo Weekender in recent days, talking about the reason why the wheels seem to have stopped turning in his professional career. “Being abroad so long, doing what I was doing - I just decided to change, to do things in such a way as to make myself a bit more happy.”
Scanlon burst onto the international scene back in 1998 when, as a relative unknown, he scooped the Junior World Road Race Championships in the Dutch town of Valkenburg.
He had dominated youth and U-18 competitions in Ireland but, until that point, hadn’t done much racing in Europe. Victory in the Junior Het Volk Classic in the lead up to the race gave an indication that he had the ability but, even so, the established cycling nations were stunned by his success.
He then successfully competed in France for several seasons, earning a professional contract with the Ag2r Prévoyance team following a successful trial towards the end of the 2003 season. Scanlon’s first pro year was a considerable success, with a stage win, race leadership and eventual fifth place overall in the Tour of Denmark being the highlight. He also finished sixth in the tough GP Plouay, en route to helping team-mate Andy Flickinger win.
2004 brought two victories on the same weekend in Estonia, the then-23 year old triumphing in the EOS Tallinn Grand Prix de la Baltique and the SEB Eesti Ühispank Tartu GP. He was second in the Grand Prix de Denain and showed good climbing ability when finishing fourth in the Trophée des Grimpeurs.
Those performances earned him a place on Ag2r’s team for the Tour de France, and there he was an important factor in the stage wins of team-mate Jaan Kirsipuu and Jean Patrick Nazon.
He also successfully completed the race and with this intensive, three-week block of racing traditionally helping a rider to become stronger in the years ahead, a bright pro future seemed to be in store. However, although no-one knew it at the time, that was the peak of his career.
2005 and 2006 were quieter years due to ill-ness, injury and flagging motivation, and he hardly did any racing in 2007.
In truth, it has been quite some time since Scanlon was passionate about professional cycling. Being away from home for long periods of time was difficult, and so too the constant demands of the career.
He would have a schedule, a programme of races, but that would often change. He would do one tough block of racing, looking forward to the chance to getting back home, but was then required by team management to do other events at short notice. After a while he became physically and mentally fatigued, and his motivation dropped.
“The fact that you couldn’t really decide on a race programme and stick to it was a big factor,” he says, speaking of these requests to ride additional events at short notice. “It was out of your hands. It wasn’t once or twice that it was happening, it was all the time.”
The other big issue was being based over-seas for long periods of time, knowing few people where he lived.
“Staying abroad in Marseille was an error on my part,” he says. “If I went back and did it all again, when I turned pro I would have maybe moved to where the [Ag2r Prévoyance] team was based in Chambery, or gone up to Belgium where the Irish guys were based.”
It is clear that the loneliness of living hundreds of miles from home was a big issue. So too the culture and unfamiliar surroundings there. “I was very isolated alright,” he admits, “and Marseilles is not that nice a place. I was living in the city - if I was living a bit outside, in the country such as in Aubagne, it would have been fine. It was more than just the lifestyle down there, too. It was tough.”
Looking back, riding the 2004 Tour appears to have been a turning point in his career. Rather than taking a rest before the Olympics, he gambled on doing more races prior to heading to Athens and competing in the Olympic Games. Things didn’t work out there, with the heat and the fatigue of his tough summer getting to him before the end of the race.
Another reason for his drop in form then surfaced a few weeks later when he was diagnosed with severe appendicitis. He under-went an emergency operation to rectify this, but it was said at the time that the condition could have been affecting him for several weeks prior to that intervention.
After modest 2005 and 2006 seasons, Scanlon spoke a year ago about being burnt out with European racing and needing a fresh start elsewhere.
He signed for the US-based Toyota United Pro team and started training hard again. However it was not to be - learning he was going to be a father, he returned to Ireland to be with his girlfriend, Mairead, prior to the birth of their daughter Orlaith.
“When I went out there I tried to tell the team that I didn’t really want to go because my girlfriend was pregnant,” he says. “I knew I wouldn’t really be able to give the bike everything.”
“I think that both sides knew that if it worked out after three or four weeks, then it works out. And if it didn’t, well then what about it.”
That last expression sounds flippant but, in truth, it reflects the fact that he no longer had the burning desire to succeed in the sport.
The nomadic lifestyle of a pro rider works for some, and so too the challenge and stresses of competition. However, away from those challenges, Scanlon now sounds much happier and more relaxed than he has been in the past.
The birth of Orlaith has probably contributed to that. “It is something nice that has happened,” he says. “I thought I was going to be a lot harder than it is, but it is all second nature, really.”
Aside from that, a major part of it is the change in his everyday life. “Before I was always under pressure to think about the next race, and about how much training I could get in before it,” he says. “That’s different now.”
Since taking the decision to step back from professional cycling, Scanlon has been keeping himself busy with other things. He has set up his own business and is now an agent for System 10, a weight loss programme based on identifying foods which have a negative effect on your metabolism and eliminating them from your diet. It is an unexpected choice, given that he admits he was too heavy when he was racing, but it has also given him an understanding as to why that might have been the case.
“I think everybody knows that I didn’t make the most of my ability,” he said. “That’s not a big secret. I was always four to five kilos too heavy. Even when I finished the Tour, I was 75 kilos and I really should have been 70.”
“Thing is, it wasn’t a lack of discipline. It was a lack of information and help, more than anything else. I was eating the right foods, but I should have been given quantities. Or you could be eating food that you think is okay, but it is actually terrible for you.”
“I spent years cycling, and in that time I had asked coaches, dieticians and other people for a structured diet plan from Monday to Sunday, based on what [exercise] I was doing. If you have Lance Armstrong or any other of the big names, they know exactly what they are eating every day in their diet.”
“At the minute, I am actually doing that for people. I am working with a guy called Dave McDonagh from System 10 and that is what he does, he puts together structured diet plans for you. It’s based on a long questionnaire which works out what foods work well with your metabolism and what stuff you shouldn’t eat.”
Scanlon has been doing some cycling, but has also been doing a lot of another sport. He took up surfing in the spring and has got totally into it. “The first time I started was in the middle of March. I did a surfing lesson, went off, bought my own board and started hammering away then.”
“It is a phenomenal sport. It is all to do with wave conditions and weather conditions, so for the last few weeks there has been nothing, no decent surfing on. So I am going off my head now looking for something to do!!
Looking back at his career, several clear highlights stand out. “It goes without saying that winning the Junior World Championships is up there as number one,” he says, speaking of his victory in Valkenburg nine years ago. “To win a race like that on your birthday [he turned 18 the same day] is like something you read about in a fairytale.”
“Finishing the Tour de France is another, and also all the work I did for the sprinters there, Kirsipuu and Nazon. I really enjoyed doing that. Of course my stage victory in the Tour of Denmark, the two wins in Estonia and my good ride in the Grand Prix Plouay are others.”
While he has ruled out competing with a top-ranked ProTour team in the future, Scanlon feels that there is a chance he could return to cycling. But, if so, it will be on his terms, done in such a way as so he can have a better balance in his life.
“I am going to start training for next winter again,” he says. “I am just tipping away at the minute, doing some mountain biking and a bit of road cycling. I might get back to some racing next season. If it happens it happens, and if it doesn’t, then what about it.”
“At the moment I know I have four or five months to get the miles in, get the weight down or whatever. We will see how things go. If I do get back to it, it would be at a third level Continental team. I have decided that I am finished with the ProTour and being based abroad for months on end, that kind of thing.”
“A Continental team is smaller, but the reason I would do it that way is that you would have more control over what you do. I would be able to say ‘this is my programme for the next three months’ and it wouldn’t change.”
Nothing is certain, and he is fully aware that he might decide not to race again. But if he does get his motivation back, he will seek to make the most of his ability and target success.
“My ambitions would actually be to get in one to two races a month on the continent, as well as helping out young guys at home as well,” he says.
“I would still be looking to win races and be as strong as possible. The way of looking at it is that you can lose motivation, but you don’t lose talent. We will see how it goes. There is nothing set in concrete yet.”
