[1][2] Born in Kiev,[3] she enjoyed swimming and table tennis in her youth before moving onto track and field after beating boys in races at school.

At the 2001 European Athletics Junior Championships she was the bronze medallist but later reflected that she did not approach the competition professionally, having gone on a long shopping trip just hours before the final.

[4] Her first senior medal came at the 2004 European Athletics Indoor Cup, where she ran a personal best of 2:01.14 minutes for the bronze.

She produced a personal best of 1:59.48 minutes in the semi-finals of the 2004 Athens Olympics but this was not enough to enter the final as one of the fastest non-qualifiers.

She ran well at the 2006 European Athletics Championships, but was conservative in her tactics due to her previous fall: choosing not to run in the tightest lane, she ended up narrowly missing out on a medal and later investigation showed she had covered 817 m during the race.

After the end of the track and field season doctors diagnosed her with an intervertebral hernia, stemming from her fall in 2006.

[4] She returned successfully after rehabilitation at the start of 2008, defeating Maria Mutola at the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships and taking the silver medal in the 800 m final, behind Tamsyn Lewis.

[3] She did not compete in the remaining IAAF Golden League meets as she was called back to Kyiv to be presented with an apartment in recognition of her achievements.

She later remarked on the affair: "They said that my participation was obligatory, because the mayor of Kyiv had to give me keys for a new apartment in the Ukrainian capital.

At the World Championships she gave a blood sample during her doping test that would ultimately lead to the disqualification of all her results from 18 August 2009 to 15 February 2013.