For years, Kostina remained in the shadow of two Ukrainian gymnasts, Oksana Skaldina and Olexandra Tymoshenko.

Though she won the all-around bronze medal at the 1992 European Championships, she was not selected for the Olympic Games in Barcelona.

She was engaged to Eduard Zenovka, a fellow athlete and Pentathlon bronze-medalist at the Olympic Games in Barcelona.

The police investigation revealed that Zenovka, who was driving the car, was heavily intoxicated at the time of the accident.

[2] Kostina was one of the few gymnasts to win gold medals in all of the apparatus in a single World Championship, along with Darja Varfolomeev, Bianka Panova, Ekaterina Serebrianskaya and Evgenia Kanaeva.