Career
She represented Italy at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and shared medals with the Italian women"s teams at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships. Her best of 18.084 km for the one-hour run set in 1981 was a world record for over seventeen years and remains the European record for the event. She came 29th at the 1981 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, but this finish was enough to help the Italian women to the team bronze.
Cruciata represented Italy in the 1500 metres at the 1974 European Athletics Championships, but was eliminated in the heats.
She made her only Olympic appearance at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, and was again knocked out in the heats stage of the 1500 m. She was fifth in the final over 1500 m at the 1978 European Athletics Indoor Championships.
She was the bronze medallist over 3000 m at the 1981 IAAF World Cup. Cruiciata broke world records for the women"s one hour run in 1980 and 1981 – she managed a distance of 17.563 km in Milan in 1980 and improved upon this with a distance of 18.084 km in Rome the following year (also setting a best time of 49:44 minutes for the 15,000 m track run).
Cruciata"s performance remains the best ever by a European, as well as being the Italian national record.
She also ran a career best of 4:24.6 minutes for the mile at the DN Galan that year and this remains the stadium record for the event. She also focused on road running events in her later career. Her performances of 1:22:05 hours in 1977 and 1:18:44 hours in 1978 were world"s best performances for women over the distance.
She had her first wins over the marathon at the Monza Marathon in 1976 and 1977, but her career best came in 1980 at the San Silvestro Marathon in Rome, where her time of 2:44:31 was a course record.