Mark Scanlon represented Ireland in the men’s road race at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

From Cranmore, Co. Sligo, Scanlon burst onto the world scene on his 18th birthday in October 1998 when he won the World Junior Road Race Championship in Valkenburg, the Netherlands, beating future world champion Filippo Pozzato of Italy and Eduard Kivshenko of Russia in a sprint finish. The victory earned him a place in the Rabobank development squad, but a series of injuries prevented him from breaking through at the highest level and he moved through several French teams before signing for AG2R Prévoyance in 2003, winning a stage of the Tour of Denmark and his second Irish national road race title that year.

In 2004 he became the first Irishman to ride the Tour de France since Stephen Roche in 1993 – completing the race – before heading to Athens, where he declined an offer to also enter the individual time trial. He rode the 2006 Giro d’Italia but a growing disillusionment with the demands of the professional calendar led him to retire in 2007 without racing for his new Toyota-United team. He subsequently returned to competitive cycling as a mountain biker.