Professional Career
Scanlon signed for AG2R Prévoyance for 2003. He won a stage of that year's Tour of Denmark, leading the race for three days. He won the Irish championship again. In 2004 Scanlon became the first Irishman in the Tour de France since Stephen Roche in 1993. He also represented Ireland in the 2004 Summer Olympics in the road race on the opening day of the Games. Scanlon was injured for much of 2005 and 2006 but rode the 2006 Giro d'Italia.
He left the AG2R Prévoyance team at the end of 2006, disillusioned with the amount of racing required in the ProTour. At the start of 2007, he rode for the Toyota-United team in the USA. In 2007 there were reports he had retired. Scanlon denied them, saying he would like to captain a third division Irish continental team but for the time being, he had taken a "step back from professional cycling."
Scanlon is now a Prison officer in Castlerea Prison.
Read more about this topic: Mark Scanlon (cyclist)
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or career:
“Smoking ... is downright dangerous. Most people who smoke will eventually contract a fatal disease and die. But they don’t brag about it, do they? Most people who ski, play professional football or drive race cars, will not die—at least not in the act—and yet they are the ones with the glamorous images, the expensive equipment and the mythic proportions. Why this should be I cannot say, unless it is simply that the average American does not know a daredevil when he sees one.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)