Diana Carolina Peñuela of DNA Pro Cycling prepares for Gila
The Tour of the Gila takes place this weekend in New Mexico. Diana Carolina of Team DNA Pro Cycling took a few minutes to share some thoughts on what makes this race special.
Click here to listen live to the Gila tour:
Please introduce yourself and give us some background on you and your team.
My name is Diana Carolina Peñuela, I am Colombian from the coffee region of the country, I live in Manizales, a small but nice town at 2100MSNM surrounded by mountains and lots of coffee, the best coffee in the world as I say still . I started cycling at the age of 23 and I have been a professional since 2015. I am also a graphic designer and work with the company ALTOS Cycling to promote bicycle tourism in Colombia. This is my first year with the DNA Pro Cycling team, but they have been supporting and promoting competitive women’s cycling for 10 years. I am so proud to be part of it.
What is your story with this race and what do you think makes this race unique compared to other races?
I raced Gila 3 times, 2016, 2017 and 2018, all with UHC (aka the “Train Bleu”) – we managed to get on the podium on several occasions. Gila is a demanding race for its altitude and steep slopes in the main stages, which makes it particularly difficult compared to other races in North America. Honestly, I like it a lot because it resembles the conditions I live and train in in Colombia.
What are the special memories of racing here in the past?
I suffered a lot in my first year at Gila, finishing in a very bad position and coming in almost with time cut in the last stage, but in this race I learned that it doesn’t matter where you finish – if your team is the winner. Your hard work and sacrifice for the team goal is worth more than a Top 20 without a podium or glory.
Even so, it hurts a lot to end up in this position too because we don’t get the expected end result. The following year we had it with Tayler Wiles, and in 2018 with Katie Hall, the two years where we won the best team and in the latter I won the solo queen stage, the same in which two years ago had just finished with the time cut off, it was one of the most beautiful moments of my entire cycling career.
Goals for this weekend – what do you and the team hope to achieve?
We go to Gila with a great team, the majority of us live and train at high altitude, we have a good balance between experienced runners, promising young runners and we have a good balance between climbers, sprinters and all the curves. I’m confident we’ll be prepared, but we know it will be a tough race with the 12 strong teams that have signed up.
What would you say to runners and fans who have never seen this race before?
I think it’s a race where you discover new talents and where there is always the emotion of competition. As in my experience, Gila is a race where riders can become real professional riders.
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