Scanlon faces hectic schedule

World junior champion Mark Scanlon has his early season programme of races sorted out with the manager of the Dutch Rabobank amateur squad, Nico Verhoeven. His first engagement is on March 7th but he will be available for international duty with some Irish under-23 teams.

Scanlon returns to Eindhoven on February 9th and goes to the Rabobank training camp at Calpe in Spain from February 16th to 28th. The Dutch management's usual policy is to have a predominantly home-grown squad and the 18-year-old Sligoman and one Australian are the only outsiders in with 17 Dutch. Verhoeven has Scanlon listed as reserve for the opening event of the season, Ster van Zwolle on Saturday, March 6th, but he is down to ride Houtse Linies the next day.

On the following two weekends Scanlon is again a reserve for the Saturday races but he is in the teams going to Gent-Leper-Kattekoers in Belgium on March 14th and Mol Centrum on the 21st. He is also listed to ride the Grand Prix Waregem on March 24th and Ronde van Midden Brabent on the 28th.

After another one-day event on Easter Monday, April 5th, at Bommelerward, Scanlon goes for his first important stage race with the team, the Tour de Loire et Cher in France from April 13th to 18th. He then has a rest period for a couple of weeks, so he will have a break at home in Sligo at the end of April before tackling the Fleche du Sud in Luxembourg from May 13th to 16th.

There will be another break from team commitments for Scanlon then and he will be back again for the Irish championship at Waterford on June 27th.

The opening races will, of course, be very important for Scanlon.

The Archer Grand Prix is an unlikely target for Scanlon as it is just two days before Loire et Cher but the event in Portugal is from May 24th to 29th and it is preparation for the European under-23 championship at Lisbon in August. Later on, Scanlon has the world under-23 championship at Verona in Italy in October and the B world championship in Uruguay in November which is very important for Olympic qualification.

Tomorrow morning the Irish team leave for the Tour of Langkawi in Malaysia. It starts next Wednesday and ends on February 14th. The team is Aidan Duff, Dermot Finnegan, Paul Griffin, Michael McNena, David McCann and Micheal Fitzgerald with Ian Chivers the manager.