Interview with Edita Pucinskaite - Part 2

Interview with Edita Pučinskaitė Part 2 (the Tour)

As promised, we are back to tell the story of a cycling legend, Edita Pučinskaitė who took part in the most important races all over the world.

Hi Edita, the last time we spoke about your adventure at the National Institute of Sport. Then, what happened?

After that, I began to travel the world with the national team of Lithuania, because at that time women's cycling races were only for national teams. In 1995 I won the bronze medal at the World Championship in Colombia.

Finally in 1996 the first teams were born ...

Exactly, and I came to Italy where i signed my first professional contract with H2O Lorena team.

How was to leave Lithuania and move to a foreign country?

I was very happy to run and have a team, even if it wasn’t easy because I didn’t know the language, but I always used to manage big changes in my life. Anyway I wasn’t alone and another lithuanian girl came to Italy with me and we faced this new experience together. We were well integrated and later I met the man who became my husband, with whom in 1998 I moved to Tuscany.

The 1998 was a magical year for you, tell us about Tour de France..

That year I felt good, but the tour seemed to be already won by the great favorite, Fabiana Luperini, perhaps the biggest cyclist of all times. All the newspapers put their eyes on her, who had already won three consecutive Tour de France and four Giro di Italia: her mission was to wear the Yellow Jersey from the first to the last stage! But I changed all her plans because I won the first stage and the Tour became a duel between the two of us. It was a tough Tour, maybe the edition with more mountains and one of the most popular because of our challenge.

I guess it was hard to challenge one of the strongest cyclists of all time..

I was wearing a pressure that I had never experienced before…the worst moment was definitely when Fabiana won the stage on the Mont Ventoux. I was in crisis but inside of me I found the way to stay strong and finally I won the Tour.

When did you realize that you could have won?

During the chrono-stage, Fabiana started before me but I realized I could beat her. In the hardest moments of my career I have always thought about that Tour, to give me strength and react.

After the victory of the Tour de France in 1998, Edita won many other races and we are going to talk about it soon in our Blog.