Diana Ziliute has announced her retirement
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Diadora-Pasta Zara director notes increased professionalisim in women’s peloton
Diadora-Pasta Zara team director Diana Ziliute was back on familiar ground last week at the Exergy Tour in southwest Idaho. The 36-year-old raced at least three times at the HP Challenge, the previous incarnation of the biggest women’s stage race in the US, and may be best known in these parts for winning the last stage of the final HP Challenge in 2002 from a two-rider breakaway with a then-unknown opponent named Kristin Armstrong.
“Exactly my emotion I can’t remember,” Ziliute said before the start of Exergy’s stage 3 on Sunday. “I make a lot of races, but in general I have very nice memories about the HP tour. Not only the last race HP, but I make a lot of other HP races and I always find a lot of friendly people, very good organization and very nice stages.”
Ziliute, a Lithuanian who now runs the Italian team of fellow world champion Giorgia Bronzini, made her own debut in the women’s pro cycling ranks in the mid 1990s after winning the 1994 World Junior Road Race Championship. In 1998 she won two World Cup races, the overall World Cup Points title and the World Road Race Championship. She won the Grand Boucle in 1999 and then took the bronze at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
Two years after Sydney she joined future Olympic medalist Armstrong in the winning breakaway during a stage on the outskirts of Boise. That race provided the results that launched Armstrong, who was racing then for the local Goldy’s team, onto a pro team and her current path to the top of the sport.
“I have a lot of respect for [Armstrong],” Ziliute said. “Because at this moment, she [continues to] race. I stopped, but she race. She’s always strong, and I hope that she can make very good results because I’m happy to see the riders I raced with in the past that they race today. When Ina [Teutenberg]
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