Four years later, in the 1972 Summer Olympics she and her teammates who were again Kalita and Kizimov improved their performance and won the gold medal.

After graduating from a secondary school with the gold medal in 1957 she entered the Department of Biology of Moscow State University.

She graduated from there with honors in 1963 and after studying in the aspirantura of the Scientific Research Institute of Pharmacology and Medicine by the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences for two years, received Candidate of Biology Sciences scientific degree.

In 1991 Petushkova became a senior research worker at the Institute of Biochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, working there until 1997.

She authored more than 60 publications in Soviet and international journals of biochemistry and wrote a monograph "An Introduction to the Kinetics of Enzymic Reactions" in 1982.