After two years of training she began to resent the hard discipline and left for a while; she came back when she realised she needed fencing to let off steam.

She climbed in 2003 her first podium in the Fencing World Cup with a gold medal in Prague and two bronzes in Tauberbischofsheim and Havana.

Sivkova's poor performance in her semi-final bouts prompted head coach Aleksandr Kislyunin to keep her as reserve in the final against Germany, which she took as a personal blow at the time.

As team épée was not included in the programme of the 2008 Summer Olympics, she had to enter the Top 8 to gain qualification, but her World Cup results were not good enough.

In the St Petersburg World Cup, the penultimate qualifying tournament, Sivkova was defeated by Romania's Ana Maria Brânză, who won the gold medal and one of the three European Olympic tickets.

[3] At the London Olympics, Sivkova defeated Jung Hyo-jung of Korea in the table of 32, but was stopped in the next round by Romania's Anca Măroiu.